Ravi Shankar, Who Brought Sitar Music to the West, Dies - The New York Times The New York Times Music |Ravi Shankar, Sitarist Who Introduced Indian Music to the West, Dies at 92 Search Photo George Harrison with Ravi Shankar in 1967. Credit Associated Press Ravi Shankar , the sitar virtuoso and composer who died on Tuesday at 92, created a passion among Western audiences for the rhythmically vital, melodically flowing ragas of classical Indian music — a fascination that had expanded by the mid-1970s into a flourishing market for world music of all kinds. In particular, his work with two young semi-apprentices in the 1960s — George Harrison of the Beatles and the composer Philip Glass, a founder of Minimalism — was profoundly influential on both popular and classical music. And his interactions throughout his career with performers from various Asian and Western traditions — including the violinist Yehudi Menuhin, the flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and the saxophonist and composer John Coltrane — created hybrids that opened listeners’ ears to timbres, rhythms and tuning systems that were entirely new to them. Mr.

Shankar died in San Diego, at a hospital near his home. He had been treated for upper-respiratory and heart ailments in the last year and underwent heart-valve replacement surgery last Thursday, his family said. His final performance was a concert with his daughter, the virtuoso sitarist Anoushka Shankar, on Nov. 4 in Long Beach, Calif. He was also the father of the singer Norah Jones. Continue reading the main story Mr. Shankar, a soft-spoken, eloquent man whose own virtuosity transcended musical languages, was trained in both Eastern and Western musical traditions. Although Western audiences were often mystified by the odd sounds and shapes of the instruments when he began touring in Europe and the United States in the early 1950s, Mr. Shankar and his ensemble gradually built a large following for Indian music. Advertisement Continue reading the main story A Beatle Was Intrigued Western interest in his instrument, the sitar, exploded in 1965 when Harrison encountered one on the set of “Help!,” the Beatles’ second film.

Harrison was intrigued by the instrument, with its small rounded body, long neck and resonating gourd at the top, and its complexity: it has 6 or 7 melody strings and about twice as many sympathetic strings, which are not played but which resonate freely as the other strings are plucked. He soon learned its rudiments and used it that year on a Beatles recording, “Norwegian Wood.” The Rolling Stones, the Animals, the Byrds and other rock groups followed suit, although few went as far as Harrison, who recorded several songs on Beatles albums with Indian musicians rather than with his band mates. By the summer of 1967 the sitar was in vogue. At first Mr. Shankar reveled in the attention his connection with popular culture had brought him, and he performed for huge audiences at the Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967 and at Woodstock in 1969. He also performed, with the tabla virtuoso Alla Rakha and the sarod player Ali Akbar Khan , at an all-star concert at Madison Square Garden in 1971 that Harrison had organized to help Mr. Shankar raise money for victims of political upheaval in Bangladesh.

But his reach went much further. He composed for films (including the score for Richard Attenborough’s “Gandhi” in 1982), ballets, electronic works and concertos for sitar and Western orchestras. As his popularity spread, societies for the presentation of Indian and other traditional music began springing up — the largest one in New York is the World Music Institute — and a thriving world music industry was soon born. Last week Mr. Shankar was told he would receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in February, said Neil Portnow, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. Though linked with the early rock era by many Americans, Mr. Shankar came to regard his participation in rock festivals as a mistake, saying he deplored the use of his music, with its roots in an ancient spiritual tradition, as a backdrop for drug use. “On one hand,” he said in a 1985 interview, “I was lucky to have been there at a time when society was changing. And although much of the hippie movement seemed superficial, there was also a lot of sincerity in it, and a tremendous amount of energy.

What disturbed me, though, was the use of drugs and the mixing of drugs with our music. And I was hurt by the idea that our classical music was treated as a fad — something that is very common in Western countries. “People would come to my concerts stoned, and they would sit in the audience drinking Coke and making out with their girlfriends. I found it very humiliating, and there were many times I picked up my sitar and walked away. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “I tried to make the young people sit properly and listen. I assured them that if they wanted to be high, I could make them feel high through the music, without drugs, if they’d only give me a chance. It was a terrible experience at the time. Photo Ravi Shankar, center, played during the Concert for Bangladesh in Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1971. Credit Donal F. Holway/The New York Times “But you know, many of those young people still come to our concerts. They have matured, they are free from drugs and they have a better attitude. And this makes me happy that I went through all that.

I have come full circle.” Ravi Shankar, whose formal name was Robindra Shankar Chowdhury, was born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, India, to a family of musicians and dancers. His older brother Uday directed a touring Indian dance troupe , which Ravi joined when he was 10. Within five years he had become one of the company’s star soloists. He also discovered that he had a facility with the sitar and the sarod, another stringed instrument, as well as the flute and the tabla, an Indian drum. The idea of helping Western listeners appreciate the intricacies of Indian music occurred to him during his years as a dancer. “My brother had a house in Paris,” he recalled in one interview. “To it came many Western classical musicians. These musicians all made the same point: ‘Indian music,’ they said, ‘is beautiful when we hear it with the dancers. On its own it is repetitious and monotonous.’ They talked as if Indian music were an ethnic phenomenon, just another museum piece. Even when they were being decent and kind, I was furious. And at the same time sorry for them.

Indian music was so rich and varied and deep. These people hadn’t penetrated even the outer skin.” Mr. Shankar soon found, however, that as a young, self-taught musician he had not penetrated very deeply either. In 1936 an Indian court musician, Allaudin Khan, joined the company for a year and set Mr. Shankar on a different path. ‘I Surrendered Myself’ “He was the first person frank enough to tell me that I had talent but that I was wasting it — that I was going nowhere, doing nothing,” Mr. Shankar said. “Everyone else was full of praise, but he killed my ego and made me humble.” When Mr. Shankar asked Mr. Khan to teach him, he was told that he could learn to play the sitar only after he decided to give up the worldly life he was leading and devote himself fully to his studies. In 1937 Mr. Shankar gave up dancing, sold his Western clothes and returned to India to become a musician.

Advertisement Continue reading the main story “I surrendered myself to the old way,” he said, “and let me tell you, it was difficult for me to go from places like New York and Chicago to a remote village full of mosquitoes, bedbugs, lizards and snakes, with frogs croaking all night. I was just like a Western young man. But I overcame all that.” After studying with Mr. Khan and marrying his daughter, Annapurna, also a sitarist, Mr. Shankar began his performing career in India. In the 1940s he started bringing Eastern and Western currents together in ballet scores and incidental music for films, including Satyajit Ray’s “Apu” trilogy, in the late 1950s. In 1949 he was appointed music director of All India Radio. There he formed the National Orchestra, an ensemble of Indian and Western classical instruments. Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up Privacy Policy Mr. Shankar became increasingly interested in touring outside India in the early 1950s.

His appetite was whetted further when he undertook a tour of the Soviet Union in 1954 and was invited to perform in London and New York. But it wasn’t until 1956 that he began spending long periods outside India. That year he left his position at All India Radio and toured Europe and the United States. Through his recitals and his recordings on the Columbia, EMI and World Pacific labels, Mr. Shankar built a Western following for the sitar. In 1952 he began performing with Menuhin, with whom he made three recordings for EMI: “West Meets East” (1967), “West Meets East, Vol. 2” (1968) and “Improvisations: West Meets East” (1977). He also made recordings with Rampal. Coltrane had become fascinated with Indian music and philosophy in the early 1960s and met with Mr. Shankar several times from 1964 to 1966 to learn the basics of ragas, talas and Indian improvisation techniques.

Sitar performances are partly improvised, but the improvisations are strictly governed by a repertory of ragas (melodic patterns representing specific moods, times of day, seasons or events) and talas (intricate rhythmic patterns) that date back several millenniums. Coltrane named his son Ravi Coltrane, also a saxophonist, after Mr. Shankar. Mr. Shankar loved to mix the music of different cultures. In 1978 he collaborated with several prominent Japanese musicians — Hozan Yamamoto, a shakuhachi player, and Susumu Miyashita, a koto player — on “East Greets East.” In 1988 his seven-movement “Swar Milan” was performed at the Palace of Culture in Moscow by an ensemble of 140 musicians, including the Russian Folk Ensemble, members of the Moscow Philharmonic and the Ministry of Culture Chorus, as well as Mr. Shankar’s group of Indian musicians. And in 1990 he collaborated with Mr.

Glass — who had worked as his assistant on the film score for “Chappaqua” in the late 1960s — on “Passages,” a recording of works he and Mr. Glass composed for each other. “I have always had an instinct for doing new things,” Mr. Shankar said in 1985. “Call it good or bad, I love to experiment.” Photo Mr. Shankar in New Delhi in January 2012. Credit Manish Swarup/Associated Press Though many listeners became familiar with Mr. Shankar mainly through his cross-cultural, style-blending experiments, his film scores and his concertos, his main love remained the ancient Northern Indian Hindustani style in which he was trained as a young man. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Throughout his career he toured the world with a variation on the traditional Indian ensemble: himself as the sitar soloist, backed by a pair of tamburas — string instruments that provide a backing drone — and tabla, a sublimely tactile percussion instrument that produces rounded, subtly bending pitches. Often his tabla player was Alla Rakha, who became a renowned soloist in his own right. At times, Mr.

Shankar also shared the spotlight with Ali Akbar Khan, a master of the sarod, another Indian stringed instrument. These concerts, including an annual performance at Carnegie Hall, adhered to traditional forms, in which the musicians would improvise on a raga, often ecstatically, for about an hour per piece. A Lasting Friendship Western listeners who were sensitive to the techniques that Mr. Shankar and his musicians were using to expand on the ragas found the music entrancing and Mr. Shankar’s inventiveness and dexterity startling. Many sought out the music of other sitar, sarod and tabla soloists, as well as Indian vocalists, and branched out to other forms of world music, from China, Japan, Indonesia and eventually African and Latin American countries. Mr. Shankar maintained his friendship and working relationship with Harrison, who released a recording of a 1972 performance by Mr. Shankar on the Beatles’ Apple label. In 1974 Harrison also produced a recording on his own Dark Horse label by a group billed as Shankar Family and Friends performing in a more popular style — short, bright-edged songs with vocals, rather than expansive instrumental improvisations.

The “friends” included Harrison, listed in the credits as Hari Georgeson, as well as the bassist Klaus Voormann, the pianist Nicky Hopkins, the organist Billy Preston and the flutist Tom Scott. Mr. Shankar toured the United States with Harrison the same year. They last worked together in 1997, when Harrison produced Mr. Shankar’s “Chants of India” CD for EMI. After Harrison’s death in 2001, Mr. Shankar contributed a new composition to the “Concert for George,” a starry celebration of Harrison’s music staged at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2002. The new piece, “Arpan,” was performed by an ensemble of Indian and Western musicians led by Anoushka Shankar. Protecting the Heritage Mr. Shankar continued to be regarded in the West as the most eloquent spokesman for his country’s music. But his popularity abroad and his experiments with Western musical sounds and styles drew criticism among traditionalists in India. “In India I have been called a destroyer,” he said in 1981. “But that is only because they mixed my identity as a performer and as a composer.

As a composer I have tried everything, even electronic music and avant-garde. But as a performer I am, believe me, getting more classical and more orthodox, jealously protecting the heritage that I have learned.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Shankar was a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian Parliament, from 1986 to 1992 — one of 12 “nominated members” chosen by the president for their contributions to Indian culture. Mr. Shankar taught extensively in the United States and founded a school of Indian music, the Kinnara School, in Los Angeles. He was a visiting professor at City College in New York in 1967. Recordings of his lectures there were the basis for “Learning Indian Music,” a set of cassettes. Mr. Shankar was the subject of a documentary, “Raga: A Film Journey Into the Soul of India,” in 1971, and published two autobiographies: “My Music, My Life” in 1969 and “Raga Mala” in 1997.

In 2010 the Ravi Shankar Foundation started a record label, East Meets West Music, which began by reissuing some of his historic recordings and films, including “Raga.” Mr. Shankar’s first marriage, to Annapurna Devi, ended in the late 1960s. They had a son, Shubhendra Shankar, who died in 1992. He also had long relationships with Kamala Shastri, a dancer; Sue Jones, a concert producer, with whom he had a daughter, Ms. Jones, in 1979; as well as Sukanya Rajan, whom he married in 1989. Ms. Shankar, the sitar virtuoso, is their daughter, born in 1981. He is survived by his wife and two daughters, as well as three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. “If I’ve accomplished anything in these past 30 years,” Mr. Shankar said in the 1985 interview, “it’s that I have been able to open the door to our music in the West.

I enjoy seeing other Indian musicians — old and young — coming to Europe and America and having some success. I’m happy to have contributed to that. “Of course now there is a whole new generation out there, so we have to start all over again. To a degree their interest in India has been kindled by ‘Gandhi,’ ‘Passage to India’ and ‘The Jewel in the Crown,’ ” he added, referring to popular Western films and TV shows. “What we have to do now is convey to them an awareness of the richness and diversity of our culture.” Correction: December 29, 2012 An obituary on Dec. 13 about the sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar misstated the number of strings on a sitar. Sitars have either six or seven melody strings, and the number of sympathetic strings varies but is usually between 11 and 13; they do not have six melody strings and 25 sympathetic strings. A version of this article appears in print on December 13, 2012, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Wooed World With His Sitar.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Ravi Shankar | Indian musician and composer | Britannica.com Indian musician and composer Alternative Title: Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury Ravi Shankar Pierre Boulez Ravi Shankar, in full Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury (born April 7, 1920, Benares [now Varanasi], India—died December 11, 2012, San Diego , California , U.S.), Indian musician, player of the sitar , composer, and founder of the National Orchestra of India, who was influential in stimulating Western appreciation of Indian music . Ravi Shankar, 2006. Indranil Mukherjee—AFP/Getty Images Born into a Bengali Brahman (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 brother Uday’s dance troupe. At age 18 Shankar gave up dancing, and for the next seven years he studied the sitar (a long-necked stringed instrument of the lute family) under the noted musician Ustad Allauddin Khan.

After serving as music director of All-India Radio from 1948 until 1956, he began a series of European and American tours. In the course of his long career, Shankar became the world’s best-known exponent of Hindustani (North Indian) classical music, performing with India’s most-distinguished percussionists and making dozens of successful recordings. Shankar composed the film scores for the Indian director Satyajit Ray ’s famous Apu trilogy (1955–59). 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. Ravi Shankar (foreground), 1967. John Reader—Time Life Pictures/Getty Images 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.

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. During his lifetime he won Grammy Awards for his album West Meets East (1966), with Menuhin; for The Concert for Bangladesh (1971), with Harrison; and for Full Circle (2001), a live recording of a performance at Carnegie Hall with his daughter Anoushka Shankar (born 1981). In 1997 he received the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale prize for music. 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 (born 1979), who found her niche in an eclectic blend of jazz, pop, and country music . Britannica Stories Sitar icon Ravi Shankar dead at 92 - NY Daily News Ravi Shankar dead at 92: Sitar icon played with Beatles, lauded as 'godfather of world music' Sitar icon Ravi Shankar dead at 92 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Ravi Shankar performs during a concert in Bangalore, India. (Aijaz Rahi/AP) THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Updated: Wednesday, December 12, 2012, 10:19 AM NEW DELHI - With an instrument perplexing to most Westerners, Ravi Shankar helped connect the world through music. The sitar virtuoso hobnobbed with the Beatles, became a hippie musical icon and spearheaded the first rock benefit concert as he introduced traditional Indian ragas to Western audiences over nearly a century.

From George Harrison to John Coltrane, from Yehudi Menuhin to David Crosby, his connections reflected music's universality, though a gap persisted between Shankar and many Western fans. Sometimes they mistook tuning for tunes, while he stood aghast at displays like Jimi Hendrix's burning guitar. Shankar died Tuesday at age 92. A statement on his website said he died in San Diego, near his Southern California home with his wife and a daughter by his side. The musician's foundation issued a statement saying that he had suffered upper respiratory and heart problems and had undergone heart-valve replacement surgery last week. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also confirmed Shankar's death and called him a "national treasure." Labeled "the godfather of world music" by Harrison, Shankar helped millions of classical, jazz and rock lovers discover the centuries-old traditions of Indian music. AP George Harrison with Ravi Shankar in 1967. "He was legend of legends," Shivkumar Sharma, a noted santoor player who performed with Shankar, told Indian media. "Indian classical was not at all known in the Western world. He was the musician who had that training ...

the ability to communicate with the Western audience." He also pioneered the concept of the rock benefit with the 1971 Concert For Bangladesh. To later generations, he was known as the estranged father of popular American singer Norah Jones. His last musical performance was with his other daughter, sitarist Anoushka Shankar Wright, on Nov. 4 in Long Beach, California; his foundation said it was to celebrate his 10th decade of creating music. The multiple Grammy winner learned that he had again been nominated for the award the night before his surgery. "It's one of the biggest losses for the music world," said Kartic Seshadri, a Shankar protege, sitar virtuoso and music professor at the University of California, San Diego. "There's nothing more to be said." As early as the 1950s, Shankar began collaborating with and teaching some of the greats of Western music, including violinist Menuhin and jazz saxophonist Coltrane. He played well-received shows in concert halls in Europe and the United States, but faced a constant struggle to bridge the musical gap between the West and the East.

Describing an early Shankar tour in 1957, Time magazine said. "U.S. audiences were receptive but occasionally puzzled." His close relationship with Harrison, the Beatles lead guitarist, shot Shankar to global stardom in the 1960s. Harrison had grown fascinated with the sitar, a long-necked string instrument that uses a bulbous gourd for its resonating chamber and resembles a giant lute. He played the instrument, with a Western tuning, on the song "Norwegian Wood," but soon sought out Shankar, already a musical icon in India, to teach him to play it properly. Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Students and teachers pay tribute to Ravi Shankar at the Bengali Tola Inter College where Shankar had studied in Varanasi, India, on Wednesday. The pair spent weeks together, starting the lessons at Harrison's house in England and then moving to a houseboat in Kashmir and later to California. Gaining confidence with the complex instrument, Harrison recorded the Indian-inspired song "Within You Without You" on the Beatles' "Sgt.

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," helping spark the raga-rock phase of 60s music and drawing increasing attention to Shankar and his work. Shankar's popularity exploded, and he soon found himself playing on bills with some of the top rock musicians of the era. He played a four-hour set at the Monterey Pop Festival and the opening day of Woodstock. Though the audience for his music had hugely expanded, Shankar, a serious, disciplined traditionalist who had played Carnegie Hall, chafed against the drug use and rebelliousness of the hippie culture. "I was shocked to see people dressing so flamboyantly. They were all stoned. To me, it was a new world," Shankar told Rolling Stone of the Monterey festival. While he enjoyed Otis Redding and the Mamas and the Papas at the festival, he was horrified when Hendrix lit his guitar on fire. "That was too much for me. In our culture, we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God," he said. In 1971, moved by the plight of millions of refugees fleeing into India to escape the war in Bangladesh, Shankar reached out to Harrison to see what they could do to help.

Sandro Campardo/AP Ravi Shankar performs during the opening day of the Paleo Festival, in Nyon, Switzerland, in 2005. In what Shankar later described as "one of the most moving and intense musical experiences of the century," the pair organized two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden that included Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr. The concert, which spawned an album and a film, raised millions of dollars for UNICEF and inspired other rock benefits, including the 1985 Live Aid concert to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia and the 2010 Hope For Haiti Now telethon. Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury was born April 7, 1920, in the Indian city of Varanasi. At the age of 10, he moved to Paris to join the world famous dance troupe of his brother Uday. Over the next eight years, Shankar traveled with the troupe across Europe, America and Asia, and later credited his early immersion in foreign cultures with making him such an effective ambassador for Indian music.

During one tour, renowned musician Baba Allaudin Khan joined the troupe, took Shankar under his wing and eventually became his teacher through 7 1/2 years of isolated, rigorous study of the sitar. "Khan told me you have to leave everything else and do one thing properly," Shankar told The Associated Press. In the 1950s, Shankar began gaining fame throughout India. He held the influential position of music director for All India Radio in New Delhi and wrote the scores for several popular films. He began writing compositions for orchestras, blending clarinets and other foreign instruments into traditional Indian music. And he became a de facto tutor for Westerners fascinated by India's musical traditions. He gave lessons to Coltrane, who named his son Ravi in Shankar's honor, and became close friends with Menuhin, recording the acclaimed "West Meets East" album with him. He also collaborated with flutist Jean Pierre Rampal, composer Philip Glass and conductors Andre Previn and Zubin Mehta. "Any player on any instrument with any ears would be deeply moved by Ravi Shankar.

If you love music, it would be impossible not to be," singer Crosby, whose band The Byrds was inspired by Shankar's music, said in the book "The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi." Shankar's personal life, however, was more complex. His 1941 marriage to Baba Allaudin Khan's daughter, Annapurna Devi, ended in divorce. Though he had a decades-long relationship with dancer Kamala Shastri that ended in 1981, he had relationships with several other women in the 1970s. In 1979, he fathered Norah Jones with New York concert promoter Sue Jones, and in 1981, Sukanya Rajan, who played the tanpura at his concerts, gave birth to his daughter Anoushka. He grew estranged from Sue Jones in the 80s and didn't see Norah for a decade, though they later re-established contact. He married Rajan in 1989 and trained young Anoushka as his heir on the sitar. In recent years, father and daughter toured the world together.

The statement she and her mother released said, "Although it is a time for sorrow and sadness, it is also a time for all of us to give thanks and to be grateful that we were able to have him as part of our lives." When Jones shot to stardom and won five Grammy awards in 2003, Anoushka Shankar was nominated for a Grammy of her own. Shankar himself won three Grammy awards and was nominated for an Oscar for his musical score for the movie "Gandhi." His album "The Living Room Sessions, Part 1" earned him his latest Grammy nomination, for best world music album. Despite his fame, numerous albums and decades of world tours, Shankar's music remained a riddle to many Western ears. Shankar was amused after he and colleague Ustad Ali Akbar Khan were greeted with admiring applause when they opened the Concert for Bangladesh by twanging their sitar and sarod for a minute and a half. "If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more," he told the confused crowd, and then launched into his set.

Ravi Shankar - Biography - IMDb Ravi Shankar Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (2) | Trivia (13) | Personal Quotes (1) Overview (3) Robindra Shankar Chowdhury Mini Bio (1) Ravi Shankar was a world-renowned musician, composer, performer, and scholar of classical Indian music. He was one of the leading cultural figures of the twentieth century whose accomplishments placed him as the leading figure of an important musical tradition. His long and distinguished musical career included numerous recordings, performances at all the world's leading venues, and a series of unprecedented collaborations with other leading musicians. Although he is well known because of his interaction with the popular music world, it is important to underscore that Shankar is considered the leading international figure in a very elevated art form, Hindustani music. Shankar was born on April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, India. He moved to Paris in 1930, and received most of his education there.

From the age of 12, he performed as a musician and dancer on tour in Europe and America with his brother Uday Shankar, and in 1939 had his first concert as soloist at a music conference in Allahabad. By 1945 Shankar's reputation as the leading performer of traditional Hindustani music on the sitar had coalesced. He began to branch out as a composer, writing music for ballet and for important films such as such as Dharti Ke Lal and Neecha Nagar. He also composed the song Sare Jahan Se Accha, which is one of the most widely known piece of music in India. In 1949, Shankar became Music Director of All-India Radio at Delhi, and founded the Vadya Vrinda Chamber Orchestra. During the years 1950-55 Shankar composed some of his most famous music, most notably in the internationally-acclaimed film studios of Calcutta, where he scored The Ray Triology. For his outstanding contribution to Indian music and culture, he received his first of five Presidential Awards in 1962, India's highest honor in the arts.

In the mid-1960s, his preeminence as one of the world's leading serious musicians was augmented with wide popular success. George Harrison of The Beatles developed a deep, abiding interest in Hindustani music, and began to study with Shankar. One influence of this study can be heard in his song Within You, Without You. Shankar died in San Diego, California in 2012 at the age of 92. - IMDb Mini Biography By: <UCSD bio> Spouse (2) Trivia (13) Currently a Regents Professor of Music at the University of California, San Diego. Taught George Harrison of the Beatles how to play the sitar, an instrument on which he is considered an expert player. Awarded the Polar Music Prize, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music Award, in 1998. Father of musician Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar . Began his performing career as a dancer, and was taught his sitar exercises by his teacher's singing them; the teacher could not play the instrument.

Appreciated the increased attention his music received in the psychedelic era (particularly through his association with George Harrison ), but found the frequent drug use of his listeners distasteful; Shankar would sometimes cut performances short, or actually stop the music and admonish the audience if wafting smoke or noises interfered with the musicians' playing. In time, his audiences cleaned up, which pleased Shankar greatly. Had a relationship with dancer Kamala Shastri from the late '40s until 1981 when he left her to be with Sue Jones, the mother of his daughter Norah Jones . Knew second wife Sukanya Rajan since the '70s. Daughter Norah Jones , born in 1979, was from a relationship with Sue Jones, a New York concert producer. After fathering his daughter Anoushka Shankar with Sukanya Rajan in 1981, Shankar lived with Sue Jones until 1986 when he returned to Rajan and eventually married her. Has a son Shubhendra Shankar, born in 1942, with his first wife Annapurna Devi.

Approached George Harrison in the summer of 1971 with news about the civil war in Bangladesh (then part of Pakistan), and asked Harrison's help in promoting a benefit concert to aid war refugees who had fled to India; Shankar had hoped to raise $10,000. The resulting The Concert for Bangladesh (1972) raised more than a hundred times that amount, but most of the money was held in escrow, due to an IRS tax investigation, until nearly a decade later. SMA Article: Sitar - Connecting the East and West Sitar - Connecting the East and West Instruments The sitar is without doubt the most well known among Indian musical instruments, especially in the west. First made popular by Pandit Ravi Shankar and The Beatles, the sitar has since made numerous inroads into popular western music and continues to exhibit a profound influence. The sitar also holds the distinction of uniting Indian music and rock music, when in April 1965, the Yalebirds composed “Heart Full Of Soul”, where sitar sounds were duplicated with an electric guitar. The song became a major hit on its release paving the way for the sitar to become an integral part of the western music scene.

Unlike many fads, which quickly pass, the sitar continues to hold ground, with many recent artists still opting to use sitar music on their tracks. Origins of the sitar: The sitar emerged as a result of the Indo-Persian culture during the Mughal rule and has its roots in both the Persian ‘setar’ as well as in the Indian ‘veena.’ Legend attributes the invention of this stringed instrument to the great Indian scholar, poet and musician Amir Khusro. Commonly used in Hindustani music, the sitar is popular in all parts of the Indian sub-continent. The versatility of the sitar lies in its complex construction, which has allowed it to be adapted in a variety of genres including Indo-Western fusion music and Indian Film music. Made out of a gourd body, the sitar derives its beautiful resonance, from the aptly placed sympathetic strings and long hollow neck. These strings, which are never played by the performer, resound in sympathy with the playing strings, creating a polyphonic timber that many have come to associate with India through the popularity of this instrument.

Pandit Ravi Shankar- The pioneer who introduced the sitar to the west: Pandi Ravi Shankar, one of the greatest sitarists of the twentieth century, can be credited for introducing the incredible sounds of the sitar to the west. Pandit Shankar was already a very popular composer and performer before he embarked on an international career. His association with the western music scene started in 1956, when he began to tour Europe and America. He increased the sitar’s popularity through performances, teaching and through his association with renowned musicians Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison. Shankar single handedly enriched Western music with sitar sounds by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and touring extensively. He associated with many western musicians and even performed in the famous 1969 Woodstock festival. He firmly established the sitar as an instrument of repute when he won the 1967 Grammy Award For Best Chamber Music Performance for “West meets East”, a collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin. The Beatles and the sitar: The sitar gained the zenith of popularity with the popular rock band, The Beatles.

It all started when George Harrison chanced upon a sitar, which was to be used as a prop, during the filming of The Beatles’ second movie “Help!”and tried to play it. This initial interest in the sitar prompted Harrison to take lessons from Pandit Ravi Shankar. He came to India and took six weeks of sitar lessons in Srinagar, Kashmir. This highly publicized event was shot as a documentary film by Horward Worth and released as “Raga” in 1971. His newfound interest in the sitar took shape when he played the instrument in the song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” in the album “Rubber Soul” in 1965. The Beatles association with the sitar continued as many more of their songs featured sitar tracks. These include many hit songs such as “Love You To”, “Tomorrow Never Knows”, “Within You Without You”, “The Inner Light”, and “Across The Universe”. Apart from these songs, Harrison has used the sitar extensively in his solo album “Wonderwall Music” (1968).

All The Beatles’ songs featuring the sitar were a huge success and this lead to the sitar becoming famous the world over. The sitar in other western compositions: The Beatles were one of the most successful bands during the 60’s and their passion for using the sitar brought on a fad where many other musicians started using sitar tracks in their albums. The Rolling Stone guitarist Brian Jones, a self-taught sitar player, played the sitar on songs “Paint it, Black”, “My Little One” and “Street Fighting Man”. Other artists who used the sitar were, The Monkeys in “This Just Doesn’t Seem To Be My Day”, The Turtles in ”Sound Asleep”, The Kinks in “Fancy”, and The Lemon Pipers in “Green Tambourine.” Though commonly used by pop bands, sitar music also came to be used by artists of other music genres. This included art-rock bands such as The Moody Blues in their album “S. F. Sorrow,” and Jethro Tull in “Fat Man" and "Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day".

It even made its way into Western Classical music, when Roy Wood from The Move played the sitar on “Night of Fear” using the same riffs as Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”. Famous sitar songs beyond the hippie generation: Though the sitar craze died down by the early 1970’s, artists have continued to use the sitar to enhance the quality of their music making sitar music an integral part of pop music. Many famous artists and pop music bands continue to use the sitar to lend a distinctive touch to their music. Among these are Elton John in “Holiday Inn” from the album “Madman Across the Water”, Stanley Dan in his 1972 hit “Do It Again”, T. Rex in “Chrome Sitar”, B. J. Thomas in “Hooked On A Feeling”, Stevie Wonder in “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours”, Metallica in “Wherever I May Roam”, Tool in “4 Degrees”, Moody Blues in “Om” and Shakira in her recent album “Gypsy”.

The sitar and Indian Music: The sitar’s foray into the west has brought about a deep awareness and interest for all types of Indian Classical music. Indian Classical, Hindustani and Filmy music are no longer contained within the Indian sub-continent but open to people from all over the world. This has brought about a renewed desire to learn Indian music, but many don’t have the opportunity to do so. The Shankar Mahadevan Academy caters to this International need by providing online singing classes for Indian Classical/Devotional/Bollywood music. Founded by renowned singer, musician and composer, Shankar Mahadevan, the Academy gives people the opportunity learn Indian music in the comfort of their home. The classes include online interaction with expert teachers and specially designed OM (Online Music) books. Shankar Mahadevan is very passionate about spreading Indian music to all corners of the world. In a recent interview with Rekha Shah, Shankar Mahadevan explains the reason why he started the academy. “I believe that if something interests you and is good to do, then surely you must do it really well. I just make time for the things that are close to my heart, and believe me, anything to do with music is important to me.

I set up the Shankar Mahadevan Academy because there are thousands of people who love music -- Hindustani, Carnatic, Devotional, Film music -- and want to learn it, but don't know where to go. My online music academy is a small but sincere effort to help aspiring people learn music and revel in their talent.” Learn more at Did you know that the sitar is the most popular Indian musical instrument in the West? References: With which Musical Instrument is Pandit Ravi Shankar Associated? With which Musical Instrument is Pandit Ravi Shankar Associated?

1 Warning: Illegal string offset 'alt_text' in /home/resultwa/public_html/edupil.com/wp-content/themes/edupil155/includes/theme.php on line 742 Warning: Illegal string offset 'description' in /home/resultwa/public_html/edupil.com/wp-content/themes/edupil155/includes/theme.php on line 743 1 Warning: Illegal string offset 'alt_text' in /home/resultwa/public_html/edupil.com/wp-content/themes/edupil155/includes/theme.php on line 742 Warning: Illegal string offset 'description' in /home/resultwa/public_html/edupil.com/wp-content/themes/edupil155/includes/theme.php on line 743 Answer: Sitar Sitar instrument is associated with Pandit Ravi Shankar. Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury (7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012) was an Indian musician and composer three time Grammy award winner.

Ravi Shankar was awarded the three to Indian National civil honours – Padma Bhushan in 1967 Pandit Ravi Shankar was also awarded by several award by other governmental some like are; Ravi Shankar was received the ‘Roman Magsaysay Award’ in 1992. He was received the Legion of Honour of France in 2000 Elizabeth ll was awarded to Pt. Ravi Shankar ‘Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire’. Madhya Pradesh Government was awarded from Kalidas Samman to Pt. Ravi Shankar. Pandit Ravi Shankar was a stared his career as a dancer. You know that “Sare Jahan Se Achcha Hindostan Hamara” penned by Allama Iqbal and tune was given by Ravi Shankar during the British days. Ravi Shanker last performed in California on November 4 along with his daughter Anoushka Shankar. Update Manas: Culture, Music of India Indian Music Music has always occupied a central place in the imagination of Indians.

The range of musical phenomenon in India, and indeed the rest of South Asia, extends from simple melodies, commonly encountered among hill tribes, to what is one of the most well- developed "systems" of classical music in the world. Indian music can be described as having been inaugurated with the chanting of Vedic hymns, though it is more than probable that the Indus Valley Civilization was not without its musical culture, of which almost nothing is known. There are references to various string and wind instruments, as well as several kinds of drums and cymbals, in the Vedas. Sometime between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD, the Natyasastra, on Treatise on the Dramatic Arts, was composed by Bharata. This work has ever since exercised an incalculable influence on the development of Indian music, dance, and the performing arts in general. The term raga, on which Indian music is based, was first discussed at any length in the Brhaddesi, a work from the 10th century attributed to Matanga.

In the 13th century, the theorist Sarngadeva, who authored the large work Sangitaratnakara, listed 264 ragas; by this time, the Islamic presence was beginning to be felt in India. Some date the advent of the system of classical Indian music as we now know it to Amir Khusro. Muslim rulers and noblemen freely extended their patronage to music. In the courts of the Mughal emperors, music is said to have flourished, and the composer-musician Tansen was one of the jewels of Akbar's court. Though songs had traditionally been composed in Sanskrit, by the sixteenth century theywere being composed in the various dialects of Hindi -- Braj Bhasa and Bhojpuri among them -- as well as Persian and Urdu. The great poet-saints who chose to communicate in the vernacular tongues brought forth a great upheaval in north India and the bhakti or devotional movements they led gained many adherents. The lyrics of Surdas, Tulsidas, and most particularly Kabir and Mirabai would henceforth be set to music, and bhajans , or devotional songs, continue to be immensely popular.

By the sixteenth century, the distinction between North Indian (Hindustani) and South Indian (Carnatic) music was also being more sharply delineated. Though music in the north, owing to the strong Muslim presence, had been more open to outside influences, in the eighteenth century South Indian musicians were to show themselves as being quite adept in adopting foreign instruments. Sometime in the mid-eighteenth century, the violin entered the repertoire of South Indian music, an instrument which in the late twentieth century has a dazzling array of extraordinarily brilliant performers. Classical music, both Hindustani and Carnatic, may be either instrumental or vocal : the connoisseurs of music maintain, as one might expect, that the vocalists represent the music in its greatest glory, but instrumental music has at least just as large a following. Though traditionally this music would have been performed in temples, courts, residences of noblemen and other patrons, and in small gatherings (called baithaks) of music aficionados, today most classical music concerts are held in concert halls. In the 1960s, classical Indian music entered a new phase.

It found adherents in the West, and the sitar of Ravi Shankar was to be heard on the famous Beatles' album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Ravi Shankar, along with other well-known musicians like the Sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan, was to make his home in the United States, and for the first time Indian classical music began to acquire Western students. Satyajit Ray, the first Indian director to acquire world fame, and a common name in repertory art cinemas, also brought classical Indian music to the attention of Westerners, for the music of some of his early films was composed by Ravi Shankar and Vilayat Khan, sometimes described as India's greatest sitarist. Finally, collaborations ensued between Indians musicians and Western musicians, as in the case of Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin, who collaborated on a number of East-West albums. In recent years, Ravi Shankar has collaborated with the American minimalist composer, Philip Glass, on Passages; there have also been successful collaborations between L. Shankar and L. Subramaniam, both violinists, and Western musicians. This music is now routinely described as fusion .

Though a musicians such as Ravi Shankar can scarcely be described as a household name in the West, he is unquestionably one of the most well-known non- Western musicians in the West, and Indian classical music can fairly be described as having carved a niche for itself in the world of concert music. In India, however, music is most commonly associated with film music . Popular Indian films, whether in Hindi, Tamil, or any of the other Indian languages, are most often described and understood in the West as "musicals", as they are seldom without songs, though they by no means constitute a genre as did American musicals. Also popular are ghazals, poetic compositions that aspire more than do popular film songs to poetic qualities: the subject here is usually the loss, memory, and remembrance of love. Qawaalis, compositions in which the subject is also love, though here it is understood that it is the love of man and woman for the Divine, have also attained a certain following, and in recent years the Pakistani qawaali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan has established a world-wide reputation.

Question: Musician and composer Ravi Shankar was associated with which musical instrument?
Answer: Sitar