Ravi Shankar (Bengali: রবি শঙ্কর Robi Shôngkor, Hindi: रवि शङ्कर or शंकर) (born April 7, 1920, in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India) is an Indian composer best known for his virtuosity on the sitar.

A disciple of Allauddin Khan (founder of the Maihar gharana of Indian classical music), Pandit Ravi Shankar is arguably the best-known Indian instrumentalist and is well known for his pioneering work in bringing the power and appeal of the Indian classical music tradition, as well as Indian music and its performers in general, to the West. This was done through his association with The Beatles (particularly George Harrison) as well as with his own personal charisma. His musical career spans over six decades and Shankar currently holds the Guinness Record for the longest international career.

Early life

Ravindra (Ravi) Shankar was born into a Bengali brahmin family, whose ancestral home was present day Kalia Upozila in Narail District, Jessore, Bangladesh. His father, Shyam Shankar, an eminent barrister, travelled widely. His mother's name was Hemanginee, and his elder brother Uday Shankar was a famous Indian classical dancer. In 1930, at the age of 10, Ravi Shankar moved to Paris with his mother and brothers Davendra and Rajendra to join his father and elder brother.[1] As a teenager Ravi played sitar with Uday Shankar's dance troupe, most notably with Anna Pavlova in the Soviet Union.

Musical career

Ravi Shankar gave up a possible dance career, and starting in 1938 he spent long years of dedicated study under his guru Allaudin Khan. His first public performances in India came in 1939. Formal training ended in 1944, and he worked out of Bombay. He began writing scores for film and ballet and started a recording career with HMV's Indian affiliate. He became music director of All India Radio in the 1950s.

Shankar then became well known to the music world outside India, first performing in the Soviet Union in 1953 and then the West in 1956. He performed in major events such as the Edinburgh Festival as well as major venues such as Royal Festival Hall.

George Harrison, a member of The Beatles, began experimenting with the sitar in 1965. The two eventually met due to this common interest and became close friends, and that in turn expanded Shankar's fame as a pop star and as Harrison's mentor. This development greatly expanded his career. He was invited to play venues that were unusual for a classical musician, such as the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival in Monterey, California, with Ustad Allah Rakha on tabla. He was also one of the artists who performed at the Woodstock Festival in 1969, and with Harrison was one of the organizers of The Concert for Bangladesh in 1971, in an attempt to raise awareness of the growing crisis that was occurring in East Pakistan where Shankar's family origins lay. Ravi Shankar & Friends was also the opening act for Harrison's 1974 tour of the United States.

Shankar has been critical of some facets of the Western reception of Indian music. On a trip to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district after performing in Monterey, Shankar wrote, "I felt offended and shocked to see India being regarded so superficially and its great culture being exploited. Yoga, Tantra, mantra, kundalini, ganja, hashish, Kama Sutra? They all became part of a cocktail that everyone seemed to be lapping up!" In 1969 he published an English language autobiography, My Music, My Life.

Shankar has written two concertos for sitar and orchestra, violin-sitar compositions for Yehudi Menuhin and himself, music for flute virtuoso Jean Pierre Rampal, and music for Hōzan Yamamoto, master of the shakuhachi (Japanese flute), and koto virtuoso Musumi Miyashita. He has composed extensively for films and ballets in India, Canada, Europe, and the United States, including Chappaqua, Charly, Gandhi (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award), and the Apu Trilogy. His recording Tana Mana, released on the Private Music label in 1987, penetrated the New Age genre with its unique combination of traditional instruments with electronics. The classical composer Philip Glass acknowledges Shankar as a major influence, and the two collaborated to produce Passages, a recording of compositions in which each reworks themes composed by the other. Shankar also composed the sitar part in Glass's 2004 composition Orion.

Family life

When Ravi Shankar was 21, he married 14-year-old Annapurna Devi, daughter of his guru Baba Allauddin Khan and sister of Ali Akbar Khan in Almora. The marriage produced one son, Shubhendra Shankar, but ended in divorce.

He became involved with American concert promoter Sue Jones but they did not marry. Their union, however, produced one daughter, singer-songwriter Norah Jones. He later married an admirer, Sukanya Rajan, with whom he had a second daughter named Anoushka. Anoushka is a sitarist and performs frequently with her father, in addition to having her own recording career. His daughter Norah Jones has achieved massive professional success, including winning several Grammy Awards, and selling 20 million albums. Shankar is also the uncle of the late sitarist Ananda Shankar.

Ravi Shankar has homes in both Encinitas, California, and New Delhi, India.

Honors

Shankar is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is a member of the United Nations International Rostrum of Composers. He has received many awards and honours from his own country and from all over the world, including 14 honorary doctorates, the Padma Vibhushan, Desikottam, the Magsaysay Award from Manila, three Grammy Awards, the Fukuoka Grand Prize from Japan, and the Crystal Award from Davos, with the title "Global Ambassador," to name but some. In 1986 he was nominated to be a member of the Rajya Sabha, India's upper house of Parliament, for six years. In 2002, he was conferred the inaugural Indian Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award. The Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, was awarded to him in 1999. In 1998 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize with Ray Charles.