Bio:
Ghatam Vidwan V Umashankar comes from a lineage of highly accomplished musicians. He is grandson of Shri T R Harihara Sharma and the second son of Ghatam Maestro T H Vikku Vinayakram, First South Indian Grammy Awardee. Shri Harihara Sharma founded the Shri Jayaganesh Tala Vadya Vidhyalaya where Umashankar began giving performances as early as when he was 5 years old along with other students of the School. He is the only one, amongst his siblings, to follow in his Illustrious father's footsteps by taking Ghatam as his main instrument. His meteoric rise in the Classical Carnatic music field began with his first concert for Legend Shri T V Gopalakrishnan's vocal concert in Kanchipuram when he was only 12 years old. Following which he was a regular accompaniment to various upcoming artists of those days namely T M Krishna, Vijay Siva, Sanjay Subramaniam, Unni Krishnan, Ganesh Kumaresh, Nithyashree Mahadevan, Priya Sisters, Sudha Raghunathan et al. This created an opportunity for him to accompany Dr. Sirkazhi Sivachidambaram for a period of two full years when they toured extensively. As a reward to his hardwork he was invited by "Bharatha Ratna" M S Subbulakshmi Amma to accompany her for one concert. This opportunity meant a lot to him as he was filling in place of his peerless father who used to be MS amma's first choice Ghatam accompaniment as always. Legends Balamurali Krishna, Mandolin U. Shrinivas, Yesudas soon followed with their invitations to accompany them. Along with these invitations came opportunities to travel abroad with many of the stalwarts. He has travelled extensively and enchanted audience world over.
His approach in accompanying South Indian Classical Carnatic music was much appreciated by Artists of Hindustani Style which created opportunities for him to accompany Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Zakir Hussain, Pandit Jasraj, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Shivkumar Sharma. His ability to captivate the audience with stellar performances in North India brought him accolades and he has been a regular accompaniment to Western, Jazz and Alternative Music Artists such as Jonas Elberg, John Mclaughlin, Ricky Ray, Alexandra Romanova. His demonstrations abroad alongside these artists has clearly shown his virtuosity as well as the ability of his instrument to accompany the plethora of styles of music ranging from South Indian Carnatic all the way to Western Alternative music. Beyond concerts he has been regular accompaniment in Cinema music. He is a regular at the studios of Legend Illayaraja, Oscar Awardee A R Rahman, Harris Jeyaraj and Yuvan Shankara Raja. Noteworthy are his contributions in the project done by A R Rahman titled "Desh Kaa Salaam" in which he accompanies his legendary father. He conducts special performances based on invitations in india and abroad along side his own music group which he has named "Nadabrahmam".
With the blessings of Mahaperiyava of Kanchi Mutt he has embarked on a mission to teach the art he has been blessed with. He teaches Ghatam and Konnakkol, the art of reproducing the rhythmic intonations vocally. He has begun these classes in various private Matriculation and State run school as part of the co-curricular activity in their mainstream and also conducting special workshops. He brings together students of Jaiganesh Tala Vadya Vidyalaya and pupils from other Schools where he teaches in performances on Konnakkol.
