Vikram Sampath

Bangalore based Vikram Sampath is the author of three acclaimed narrative non-fiction books. He is one of the few Indian writers who excels at biographies, bringing to life the stories of royals, singers & maestro musicians. He is the writer of a much-appreciated essay on legendary singer K L Saigal in Penguin’s anthology titled ‘Bollywood Top 20’ (2012). He has been a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin, Germany (for 2010-11) where he studied the early gramophone recordings of Indian music. He is a visiting speaker at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, which has also offered him an opportunity to pursue a PhD in Indian music history. The Society Magazine listed Vikram among 50 Top Young Achievers of the country in its annual edition in 2012. He was also a Brand Ambassador of Titan’s “Be More” Campaign in 2009 and nominated as one of ‘Bangalore’s Heroes’ by the Times Group. Vikram has established an ‘Archive of Indian Music’ (AIM) –the country’s first Digital Sound Archive that digitizes and preserves old gramophone recordings of India and makes them readily available to people through an online portal. Vikram is also one of the Founder Directors of the Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF), which has had two very successful editions bringing several literary minds coming over to the Garden City. He has been appointed to several prominent Committees- those of the Central Government’s I&B Ministry and Prasar Bharati on establishing AIR & DD Archives, Dr Sam Pitroda Commission, Prasar Bharati Marketing Group and the Karnataka Government’s Vision Group for Tourism Development & formulation of new Tourism Policy. Vikram publishes regularly in leading Indian dailies and magazines on a wide array of topics. In addition, he is also a serious student of Carnatic Classical Vocal music and has been training under various eminent practitioners of the art form like Vidwan D.V. Nagaraj, Dr. Bombay Jayashri Ramnath and Dr. Jayanthi Kumaresh. Subjects related to history, music, art and culture are close to his heart. He can also be found at : www.vikramsampath.com