John Stephens is a sarode, surbahar and sitar player based in Durham, North Carolina. He trained in-person, for over a decade with Ustad Aashish Khan, eldest son of Ustad Ali Akbar of the Senia Maihar Gharana. Prior to that, he spent a year in Varanasi, learning sitar from Pandit Amar Nath Mishra. He earned a bachelor’s degree in jazz composition from Berklee College of Music (2006) and a master’s degree in North Indian music from CalArts (2011).

John has performed on concert stages across the country for numerous occasions and his film and studio credits include recordings for Disney and the Epcot Center, as well as documentary and Hollywood films. In addition to teaching privately, he taught Hindustani music at the California State Summer School for the Arts, and was a regular substitute teacher and guest lecturer for world music faculty at CalArts and UC Santa Cruz. In 2017, he published an article, “The Microtones of Bharata’s Natyashastra,” in Volume 6 of Analytical Approaches to World Music. He also transcribed and adapted a number of Ustad Aashish Khan’s compositions in western notation, and published them in Sangeet: Legacy of the Maihar Gharana, along with his introductory and explanatory text.