Anita Chandavarkar (she/her) is a flutist — improviser, interpreter, composer and educator — currently based out of San Diego, California.

She has collaborated on flute with Ensemble Dal Niente, members of Yarn/Wire, ALEA III, Callithumpian Consort, and Brooklyn Raga Massive, and has worked with such luminaries as Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, soprano Tony Arnold, Raven Chacon, and John Adams.

In addition to playing Western flute in a contemporary context, Anita plays bansuri bamboo flute in the Hindustani classical tradition, and was a featured performer at the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures. She studies with Lyon Leifer, disciple of Pandit Devendra Murdeshwar. She has also contributed to cross-cultural electroacoustic collaborations involving bansuri, and has had her sound projects shown at conferences such as the Spatial Audio Gathering Conference at Leeds Beckett University in Leeds, England, and the SPLICE Festival 2023 at Western Michigan University.

Anita earned a Master of Music degree in Flute Performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, having studied with Fenwick Smith and Paula Robison. She also holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Flute Performance, having studied with Walfrid Kujala, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish Literature from Northwestern University. She has also studied with countless other flutists through masterclasses, such as Jill Felber, Leone Buyse, Doriot Anthony Dwyer, and piccoloist Nicola Mazzanti.

Anita is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of California San Diego, studying Contemporary Performance with Wilfrido Terrazas. Her research interests currently lie at the cusp of anthropology, performance studies, subaltern studies, sociology, and various hybrid music traditions. She is currently working to clarify and rest in the gray area between oral and written traditions in music, also as a reflexive exercise for her own creative practice.  Also a highly dedicated educator, Anita has had the opportunity to course design and lecture at UC San Diego as an Associate Instructor, teaching Music of the South Asian Diaspora to undergraduates.