Written by: Purbasha Bhattacharya
Renowned Assamese violinist Sunita Bhuyan has commenced her international music and leadership tour with a prestigious invitation to Boston from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the world’s leading management consulting firms.
Widely celebrated as a trailblazing violinist, Sunita Bhuyan is the daughter of veteran violinist Late Minoti Khaund and is credited as the first artist to perform traditional Assamese Bihu music on the violin. However, music is only one dimension of her multifaceted career.
An accomplished management trainer, Sunita has carved a unique niche by using music as a medium to teach leadership, teamwork, creativity, emotional intelligence, and change management. Through her innovative approach, she has trained leaders, professionals, and students across India and abroad.
With nearly three decades of corporate experience, Sunita was invited to deliver a keynote address on “Music and Leadership” before an audience of over 450 professionals in Boston. She was accompanied by her son, London-based pianist Ronojit Bhuyan, and noted tabla artist Amit Kavthekar.
Earlier this year, Sunita was also invited to the NASSCOM Tech Leadership Forum in Mumbai, where her session on “AI vs EI (Artificial Intelligence vs Emotional Intelligence) Through Music” emerged as one of the conference’s highlights.
Her presentation at the Westin Seaport Hotel, Boston, received an enthusiastic response, with attendees applauding multiple times throughout the session—an uncommon occurrence at a corporate conference. According to Lori Maddams, a senior leader at BCG USA, Sunita’s session deeply resonated with the values of the conference and aligned strongly with the organisation’s people-engagement vision.
During her visit, Sunita also launched her music therapy programme at the Thoreau Institute of Global Health in Boston, a partner institution of KaviKrishna Laboratories, where she recently joined as a Professor of Practice in Medical Humanities.
Her extensive work and research on wellbeing through music—impacting more than 35,000 children and adults—led to collaborations with the Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) Department at IIT Guwahati and KaviKrishna Laboratories, a research centre working in the field of cancer care and therapy.
A special curtain-raiser session titled “Music for Healing” was held at the picturesque Walden Pond campus in Lincoln, Massachusetts. During the two-hour lecture-demonstration, Sunita and Ronojit captivated an audience comprising researchers, academicians, doctors, and music enthusiasts. Seamlessly blending Indian and Western musical traditions, they demonstrated the universal healing power of music through ragas, jazz, the works of Bhupen Hazarika, and Rabindranath Tagore.
Prior to her international tour, Sunita, along with the KaviKrishna team, conducted a series of music therapy workshops in Sualkuchi, Hajo, and Mangaldoi. The sessions attracted patients, caregivers, local authorities, and community members who gathered to experience this pioneering healing practice.
The next leg of Sunita’s tour includes a session at Viva Technology Paris (VivaTech), followed by a full-day workshop on Leadership Through Music at the Porto Business School in Portugal.
From July onwards, she will focus on curating several international collaborations while expanding the next phase of her music therapy interventions for underprivileged cancer patients in remote areas of Assam.