Founder-Chairman / Principal Trustee, The Anad Foundation
Musician, researcher, writer, instrument-maker, archivist, teacher, and conservator of tangible and intangible heritage

Baldeep Singh, also addressed honorifically as Bhāī Baldeep Singh, is the Founder-Chairman and Principal Trustee of The Anad Foundation. His life’s work has been devoted to the recovery, documentation, restoration, teaching, publication, and transmission of Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt, the music of Srī Gurū Granth Sāhib, and related GurSikh tangible and intangible heritage traditions.

For legal, statutory, banking, tax, audit, CSR, and formal institutional purposes, the name is Baldeep Singh. The honorific forms Bhāī Baldeep Singh, Bhāī Jī, Bhāī Sāhib, and Singh Sāhib may be used in cultural, social, artistic, pedagogical, public-facing, and correspondence contexts.

Lineage and Heritage

Bhāī Baldeep Singh is a direct descendant of Bhāī Sādhāraṇ, remembered in GurSikh sources as a disciple of Sāhib Srī Gurū Nānak Dev Ji and associated with the Dharamsāl at Kartārpur. Bhāī Sādhāraṇ was later also associated with the Mañjī system of Sāhib Srī Gurū Amar Dās Ji.

Bhāī Baldeep Singh is recognised as Sampradā Mukhī of the Sultanpur–Amritsarī Bāj, and as a principal exponent / khalīfā / pagṛī-naśīñ of this inherited tradition of mridañg, pakhāwaj, and jōṛī vidyā.

His work joins inherited learning, field research, instrument-making, oral histories, archives, publications, pedagogy, and institutional conservation.

Learning and Research

His learning and research draw upon the Girvaṛī Ṭaksāl, Sēkhvāñ Ṭaksāl, Darbār Sāhib Paramparā, and related GurSikh musical lineages. His vocal and pedagogical learning includes long association with elders such as Bhāī Gurcharan Singh Rāgī, Bhāī Avtar Singh Rāgī, Ustād Bhāī Arjan Singh Taraṅgaṛ, Bhāī Balbir Singh Rāgī, Bhāī Ratan Singh, Bībī Jaswant Kaur, and other knowledge-bearers.

His comparative study includes engagement with dhrupad-related vāṇī-s and streams, including Ḍāgurvāṇī with Ustād Rahim Fahimuddin Khan Dagar and Khaṅḍārvāṇī with Ustād Mohd. Hafiz Khan Khaṅḍehrē, along with reflection upon Gurūvāṇī, Nauhārī Vāṇī, and related historical lineages of rāga, tāla, song-form, voice, pedagogy, and repertoire.

A decisive intellectual and pedagogical influence came through Professor Dr. Sumati Mutatkar, who advised him not to alter his inherited family style through indiscriminate modern dhrupad learning. This sharpened his understanding of distinct vāṇī-s, schools, aesthetics, and hereditary musical systems, and deepened his comparative approach to Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt.

Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt and Historical Repertoire

Bhāī Baldeep Singh’s work includes the study and transmission of historical rāga-tāla practice, period repertoire, and song forms such as dhurpada / dhrupad, channt, vār, padē, śabad, slōka, dohrā, and related forms.

His research situates Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt within a long musical continuum extending from the 12th-century era of Bhagat Jaidēva and Bābā Śeikh Farīd, through the Gurū-Sikh period, and into the 17th–18th century era of Sāhib Srī Gurū Gobind Singh Ji.

He has also worked to revive the understanding and singing of the twenty-two vārs and other period song forms embedded in the GurSikh musical and poetic inheritance.

Mridañg, Jōṛī and the Sultanpur–Amritsarī Bāj

Bhāī Baldeep Singh’s percussion learning includes jōṛī, pakhāwaj, mridañg, and the Sultanpur–Amritsarī Bāj, especially through Ustād Bhāī Arjan Singh Taraṅgaṛ and related elders and students of that tradition.

His work in this field includes study of bol, layā, tāla, mukāo, sāth-dī-rīti, repertoire, compositional forms, and the relationship between percussion, text, and rāga.

He has also undertaken field-specific research and comparative study with exponents of various percussion traditions, documenting oral knowledge, repertoire, historical memories, and technical vocabularies.

Instrument-Making and Luthiery

Bhāī Baldeep Singh is also an instrument-maker and luthier. Since the late 1980s and early 1990s, he has worked to revive, study, design, repair, and handcraft heritage instruments associated with Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt and related traditions.

His work has included rabāb, tāus, sarindā, dilruba, tānpurā / tambūrī, jōṛī, pakhāwaj, and mridañg. He has also designed and developed bows and worked with luthiers and craft practitioners in India, Europe, and North America.

His instrument-making work is inseparable from his musical and archival research: instruments are studied not merely as objects, but as carriers of sound, material memory, repertoire, playing technique, craft ecology, and transmission.

Archives, Publications and Institutional Work

Bhāī Baldeep Singh founded the Sikh Archives and Research Centre, which later merged into The Anād Foundation. Through Anād, he has led long-term work in archives, oral histories, audio-visual documentation, manuscript study, publication preparation, instrument conservation, pedagogy, and public learning.

His work includes recovery and documentation of rare musical diaries, manuscripts, recordings, notations, oral accounts, instruments, tools, and field memories connected with Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt, dhrupad-related traditions, and GurSikh heritage.

He has developed major publication projects, teaching frameworks, notation resources, research materials, and institutional initiatives dedicated to the conservation of both sthūl virsā — tangible heritage — and sūkham virsā — intangible heritage.

Teaching and Public Engagement

Bhāī Baldeep Singh has taught through classes, retreats, workshops, lecture-demonstrations, seminars, and institutional engagements in India and abroad. His teaching brings together rāga, tāla, repertoire, notation, voice, percussion, instruments, textual care, archival listening, historical study, and ethical discipline.

He has served as Visiting Professor at Guru Nanak Dev University and has taught in other academic and cultural contexts, including international institutions.

He is also associated with theatre, dialogue, speech, children’s theatre, poetry, public culture, and the revival of rāga-tāla and dhurpada / dhrupad-related approaches in performance and pedagogy.

Honours and Recognition

Bhāī Baldeep Singh has received several honours for his contribution to music, heritage, and the arts, including the Bhāī Batan Singh Memorial Award, Delhi State Award, Sikh Gaurav Award, Kapurthala Heritage Award, Punjab State Award, Sikh Award UK, Bihar Certificate of Merit, Punjab State Honour for the Guru Nanak 550 commemorations, and Kalā Sārthī recognition by WFAC.

Role in The Anād Foundation

As Founder-Chairman and Principal Trustee of The Anad Foundation, Bhāī Baldeep Singh provides the Foundation’s core vision in heritage conservation, Gurbāṇī Saṅgīt, archives, publications, instrument-making, pedagogy, oral histories, public learning, and institutional continuity.

His role is not limited to artistic direction. It includes the long-term rebuilding of an ecosystem: teachers, students, archives, instruments, publications, recordings, craft practitioners, field documentation, research methods, and public charitable structures through which endangered heritage may continue to live.