Naveen was born to a family steeped in Gospel Music. Naveen started his musical career at the age of 13 yrs. He, along with his elder brother, Jyothi Kumar, who accompanied him on the tabla, played for many local concerts, and for the Vishakhapatnam radio. Naveen came to the Tamil film industry in the year 1983, with his brother and father.

Flute is his love and life. Naveen has got a various and vast collection of flutes. He is the only flautist in the country who plays such a myriad types of flute. He's got flutes from every corner of the world - from Arabia, Switzerland, China, South Africa, America and of course, the Indian flutes.

Today, Naveen is the main flautist for oscar winner, A. R. Rahman, besides almost all leading composers in the country.

Naveen spends his free time, trying to invent new sound on the flute, or even put together a new structure of the flute. He is very familiar with the writings of Professor Sambamurthy in this regard.

He chose a concert ‘Bansoori’ bamboo flute and attached the tail piece of violin to one end of the flute, with the help of twine and applied glue to fix it. Adopted 4 tuners with screws for tuning the strings. A steel plate the size of a one rupee coin was moulded and used as a base of strings route on the mouth side of the flute. At the ridge of the bamboo, 4 holes were made to enable the strings to pass through the entire bamboo which were carefully placed on to a bridge and attached to the respective tuners.

After proper tuning of the strings, in prakruti swaras, the holes were closed with honey wax. A small pickup from the U.S was used to enhance the sustained quality. Naveen calls his invention the 'Naveen Flute'. It is a combination of flute tone and sympathetic vibration of strings. It will soon be made available on his online ‘flute store’ here.

Naveen performed with AR Rahman and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Southbank centre in London on April 7, 2010. Check out the video gallery section >>