Mindia Devi is a disciple of legendary Indian classical music master Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. She began training in Indian Classical Music at age 19 at the Ali Akbar College of music in San Rafael, California where she also studied under bansuri maestro Pandit G.S. Sachdev and world renown tabla master Ustad Zakir Hussein. In 1983 she received the American Institute of Indian Studies Smithsonian Fellowship and traveled to India where she was accepted as a disciple of India’s leading bansuri flutist,  Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia.

Mindia is also a Jazz flutist of rare subtlety and range. Her initial tutledge came as an under age teen listening to the great jazz masters on the scene in NYC's clubs at night while attending the High School of Performing Arts. Later she studied under jazz flugel horn player Randy Masters at University of California Santa Cruz. As a jazz flutist she has pioneered a unique style and sound which is steeped in the sonic depths of her own NYC/Brooklyn born musical roots and her devotion to Indian classical music and the bansuri flute.

While studying Indian classical music at the AACM and pursuing a BA in Jazz at U.C.S.C.  Mindia was introduced to Indonesian Gamelan music. That began a passionate love affair which continues hotly unabated to this day. She  spent part of her Masters Degree program studying in Bali and India and received her MA in World Music and Composition from Anitoch University,