Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar (born April 7, 1920, Benares [now Varanasi], India—died December 11, 2012, San Diego, California, U.S.) was an Indian musician, sitar virtuoso, and composer, who was influential in stimulating Western appreciation of classical Indian music. He composed several ragas and provided the musical scores for films such as Gandhi (1982). His musical composition for the Urdu poem “Saare Jahan Se Accha” (“Greatest in the World”) is the most popular version of the song. Shankar is particularly remembered for his collaborations with violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin and with George Harrison of the Beatles. The honorific pandit is appended to his name, denoting his mastery of the Indian classical music tradition.

Early life and career

Born into a Bengali Brahmin (highest social class in Hindu tradition) family, Shankar spent most of his youth studying music and dance and touring extensively in India and Europe with his elder brother Uday Shankar’s dance troupe. At age 18 Shankar gave up dancing, and for the next seven years he studied the sitar under the noted musician Ustad Allauddin Khan of the Maihar gharana (a gharana is a school of Indian classical music).

After completing his training as a sitar artist in the mid-1940s, Shankar joined the Indian People’s Theatre Association, a left-wing theatrical organization that promoted ideals of social and economic equality. He composed music for the group’s productions and recomposed the popular patriotic song “Saare Jahan Se Accha”; his version remains the one most commonly performed and is frequently used by the Indian Army as a marching song. Shankar served as music director of All India Radio (AIR) from 1948 until 1956, during which time he founded the Indian National Orchestra. After his stint at AIR he began a series of European and American tours.

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Musical achievements

In the course of his long career, Shankar became the most internationally known exponent of Hindustani (North Indian) classical music, performing with India’s most-distinguished percussionists and making dozens of successful recordings. Shankar composed 31 ragas, including Bairagi, Rasiya, and Banjara. He composed the film scores for Neecha Nagar (1946; “Lowly City”), a Hindi film that won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival, and the acclaimed Apu trilogy (1955–59) by Indian director Satyajit Ray. He also scored the film Gandhi, a biopic of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi, directed by Richard Attenborough. In 1962 he founded the Kinnara School of Music in Bombay (now Mumbai) and then established a second Kinnara School in Los Angeles in 1967; he closed both schools some years later, however, having become disenchanted with institutional teaching.

Collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin, George Harrison

Beginning in the 1960s his concert performances with the American violinist Yehudi Menuhin and his association with George Harrison, lead guitarist of the then wildly popular British musical group the Beatles, helped bring Indian music to the attention of the West. Harrison had played the sitar on the 1965 song “Norwegian Wood” and sought Shankar out in order to receive professional instruction on the instrument. Shankar gave Harrison lessons on the sitar, and the two formed a lasting friendship. Harrison later played the sitar on the Beatles’ songs “Love You To” (1966) and “Within You Without You” (1967). Shankar performed at the Monterey Pop Festival (1967) and the Woodstock festival (1969). Shankar and Harrison organized the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971—featuring Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and Ringo Starr—and toured together in 1974. In 2002 Shankar played at the Concert for George, a memorial performance held after Harrison’s death.

Legacy

Among the diverse musicians influenced by Shankar’s compositional style were the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane and the composer Philip Glass, with whom Shankar collaborated on the album Passages (1990). Indeed, especially remarkable among Shankar’s accomplishments is his equally expert participation in traditional Indian music and in Indian-influenced Western music. Most characteristic of the latter activity are his concerti for sitar and orchestra, particularly Raga Mala (“Garland of Ragas”), first performed in 1981.

Honors

In 1999 Shankar received India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna. He also received the Padma Vibhushan (1981), the Padma Bhushan (1967), and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1962). He won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1992. During his lifetime he won Grammy Awards for the albums West Meets East (1966), a collaboration with Menuhin; The Concert for Bangladesh (1971), and Full Circle (2001), a live recording of a performance at Carnegie Hall with his daughter Anoushka Shankar. He was nominated for the Academy Award for best original score for Gandhi, although he did not win.

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Two months after his death in December 2012, Shankar won a fourth Grammy Award, for an intimate collection of ragas titled The Living Room Sessions Part 1. Also at that time he was honored with the Recording Academy’s lifetime achievement award. In addition to his strictly musical undertakings, Shankar wrote two autobiographies, published 30 years apart: My Life, My Music (1969) and Raga Mala (1999).

Personal life

In 1941 Shankar married sitarist Ustad Allauddin Khan’s daughter Annapurna Devi (born Roshanara Khan), who was herself a noted sitarist; they separated in the 1960s. Their son Shubhendra Shankar (popularly known as Shubho) performed with his father in concert and on tours. In 1989 Ravi Shankar married tanpura player Sukanya Rajan, mother of his daughter Anoushka Shankar. Ravi Shankar continued giving concerts into his 90s, frequently accompanied by Anoushka, who, like her father, specialized in blending Indian and Western traditions. Also a daughter of Shankar is multiple Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Norah Jones, who found her niche in an eclectic blend of jazz, pop, and country music. Jones’s mother, Sue Jones, is a concert promoter with whom Shankar had a relationship in the 1970s.