SHANKAR, RAVI

SHANKAR, RAVI (1920–), classical musician and sitar virtuoso. Born in Varanasi on 7 April 1920, Ravi Shankar's international tours and teaching have contributed significantly to the global recognition of Indian classical music. The son of a diplomat/businessman, Ravi Shankar came to music as a boy through his brother Uday's dance troupe in Paris. In 1935 Uday invited Allaudin Khan to Paris to contribute the music for his choreographies drawing upon Indian religious stories, and in this context Ravi Shankar received his first musical training. Shankar continued residential study with Allaudin Khan until the days before partition and independence, at which time he became a music director for All India Radio. He toured extensively beginning in the 1950s, playing sitar with several popular drummers (including Catur Lal and Allah Rakha), at first primarily for the growing South Asian diaspora, but increasingly for broader European and American audiences.

Ravi Shankar's experiences with Uday Shankar's dance troupe, with experimenter Allaudin Khan, and at All India Radio (where he composed music for an ensemble) uniquely prepared him to be a catalyst for change. He has composed celebrated scores for Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, and several other films. He championed the use of the bass string on the sitar, has composed new r?gas, and has ventured into new forms. His duets with Yehudi Menhuin and his concerti for sitar and orchestra have marked him as both innovator and inter-locutor between India and the West. All the while, he has celebrated a reverence for Indian music and culture and for traditional modes of education. His style of playing is at once highly rhythmic (as is that of his brother-in-law and costudent, Ali Akbar Khan) and tuneful, which has contributed greatly to his popular appeal. He is the recipient of numerous national and international awards and honors and is one of the best-known South Asians in the world.

Gordon Thompson

See alsoMusic ; R?ga ; Sitar

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Shankar, Ravi. My Music, My Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968.

"Shankar, Ravi." Available at <http://www.ravishankar.org>