Arun Luthra

The leader of Arun Luthra's Konnakol Jazz Project, Arun Luthra is one of the premier saxophonists and composers on New York’s jazz scene, and is one of the small group of American jazz musicians of Indian heritage who have continued to explore the possibilities of fusing the modern post-bop sound with elements of Indian classical music, as well as drawing from a wide variety of modern and classic musical influences to create a vibrant new sound & style. He has performed the music of his Konnakol Jazz Project worldwide, including Japan, Italy, the U.K., Australia, and throughout the United States.

Arun Luthra was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA to an Indian father and a British mother. He began his formal music training in Belgium at the age of nine, studying European classical guitar. He eventually focused on the saxophone as his primary instrument and soon began an active performing and writing career, including formal studies in Carnatic and Hindustani music rhythms and the art form of konnakol.

As a performer he has shared the stage and recorded with many of the greatest jazz, Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, and pop artists in the world, including Billy Harper, Eddie Henderson, Mike Stern, Kenny Garrett, Joe Chambers, Charli Persip, Dennis Irwin, Zé Renato, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Frankie Valli, Bobby Short, Lew Soloff, and Bernard Purdie.

Luthra has also performed and/or studied with such notable Carnatic and Hindustani music masters as Selvaganesh, Trichy Sankaran, T.A.S. Mani, Ganesh Kumar, Subash Chandran, Samir Chatterjee, G.J.R. Krishnan & Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi, Karaikudi Subramaniam, Kiran Ahluwalia, Sufi singer Zila Khan, and the iconic 1970′s Indian cross-over star Asha Puthli.

As a recording artist Luthra has been featured as a band leader, composer, arranger, and sidemusician. In addition to his career as a performer, composer, and arranger, Luthra is also a faculty member at the renowned School of Jazz in The New School’s College of Performing Arts alongside such jazz and world music greats as Reggie Workman, N.E.A. Jazz Masters JoAnne Brackeen and Jimmy Owens, George Cables, Jane Ira Bloom, and Bobby Sanabria.