Shehnai Ballesh plays various styles on the shehnai: aalaapi and aakaar like
khayal singing,
jhala like
sitar and
sarod, tatkar like
kathak dancers,
meend and harquatts like
sarangi and
violin, and continuity tones like
bansuri. He has also performed
jugalbandis, mohan veena player Pandit
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and accompanied by tablist
Yogesh Samsi, Subhankar Banerjee. Owing to his fame, he was selected to perform for the 'Nadalahari' ceremony at Chennai's
Narada Gana Sabha for the historic honour, celebrating the
UNESCO’s inclusion of
Chennai city in the Creative Cities Network in world’s cultural map on 8 November 2017. His music was played (in Raag Maru Bihag) on television every
UNESCO International Days.
Performing for SPIC MACAY Pandit Ballesh and party have performed for many
SPIC MACAY concerts throughout india in promoting shehnai playing art and its legacy, about
Indian classical music and
culture in schools, colleges and in universities.
Film music Ballesh has been a musician for many music directors in
Hindi,
Telugu,
Malayalam,
Tamil,
Kannada,
Bengali,
Gujarati,
Marathi,
Rajasthani,
Punjabi,
Oriya,
Sanskrit,
English,
Tulu,
Konkani and
Bhojpuri cinema, performing compositions by Naushad Ali,
M. S. Viswanathan,
Satyam (music director), G.K. Venkatesh, Ravindra Jain, Ravendra master, Ilaiyaraaja, A. R. Rahman and
M. M. Keeravani. and 85,000 film songs in several languages, He also played shehnai for the song "
The Dichotomy of Fame" in
Imtiaz Ali's 2011 Hindi film
Rockstar and also played for
Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera song for Hindi film
Swades, with music and sung by A.R. Rahman, and also in
Bigil Tamil film with music by A.R. Rahman. He also composed music for
Jawan with
Anirudh Ravichander. He has played for singer and music director
Kailash Kher in album Jashan-e-Sufi,
Music Education Ballesh founded Tansen Academy of Music, a school of
Hindustani Classical Music, with his musical work continued by his three sons by Prakash, Krishna and Shivanand Ballesh. == Charitable activities ==