Marianne Svašek is a Netherlands-based musician specializing in Indian classical music as both a vocalist and sarangi player.

Among the first students within the Indian music department at the Rotterdam Conservatory, she graduated cum laude in both singing and sarangi. During her studies, she also worked as a teaching assistant for ear training. Now she runs an intensive Dhrupad study programme both abroad and in her home teaching practice. She frequently visits Belgium, France, Germany, Lithuania, Israel, the Czech Republic and other countries for workshops and concerts. Marianne has 30 years of experience giving workshops and concerts across the world, and has been a teacher and course leader at the Rotterdam Conservatory since 2001.





Being one of the few women to practice and learn Dhrupad, she wishes to encourage female representation within this style of music. Marianne learned with the renowned vocalist Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar in India from 1994 until his passing in 2013. She has also studied Sarangi with Joep Bor (musicologist and founder of World Music department at Rotterdam Conservatory) and Pandit Ram Narayan (Indian musician who popularized Sarangi as a solo concert instrument). 

Marianne was born in The Hague in 1959 and currently lives in Otterlo, the Netherlands. She speaks and teaches in Dutch, English, German, French and Czech.





Mark