This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BostonMA (talk | contribs) at 14:39, 24 January 2006 (disambiguation). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 14:39, 24 January 2006 by BostonMA (talk | contribs) (disambiguation)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
This article refers to a musician named Ravi Shankar. For other persons named Ravi Shankar see Ravi Shankar (disambiguation).
Ravi Shankar (born April 7 1920 in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India) is a Bengali-Indian musician best known for his virtuosity on the sitar. His ancestral home is the present day Kalia Upozila in Narail District, Jessore, Bangladesh. His mother's name was Hemanginee, and his elder brother Uday Shankar was a famous Indian classical dancer. He first married Annapurna, daughter of his guru Baba Allauddin Khan and sister of Ali Akbar Khan in Almora, but the marriage did not last long. The marriage produced one child named Shuva Shankar. He then married Sue Jones and their marriage lasted 5 years and produced one child, the Grammy winning singer Norah Jones. He later married an admirer, Sukanya Kotiyan (née Rajan) and their marriage produced a second daughter named Anoushka Shankar. A disciple of Allauddin Khan (founder of the Maihar gharana of Indian classical music), Pandit Ravi Shankar is arguably the best-known Indian instrumentalist. He also danced and played sitar with his elder brother Uday's dance troupe.
He is well known for his pioneering work in bringing Indian music to the West. This however, he did only after long years of dedicated study under his guru Allaudin Khan and after making a name for himself in India. Shankar was well known outside India, performing in major events such as the Royal Festival and Edinburgh Festival when 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. He was also one of the artists who performed at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and The Concert for Bangladesh in 1971.
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!"
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 Hozan 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, 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.
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 fourteen honorary doctorates, the Padma Vibhushan, Desikottam, the Magsaysay Award from Manila, two 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 was awarded to him in 1999.
Shankar's daughters Anoushka Shankar and Grammy winner Norah Jones (who are half-sisters) are also musicians. Anoushka is a sitarist and performs frequently with Shankar, in addition to having her own recording career, but Jones has achieved professional success by herself with no assistance from her father. Shankar also has a son, Shuva, from his first marriage, and is the uncle of the late sitarist Ananda Shankar.
Shankar paved the way for many Indian musicians to have a platform to perform outside of India. Since then, he has maintained a steady and acclaimed career as a musician and recording artist. He has homes in both Encinitas, California and New Delhi, India. His musical career spans over 6 decades and he currently holds the Guiness Record for the longest international career.
Films
- Raga (1971). Directed by Howard Worth.
- The Concert for Bangladesh (1972).
External links
- Ravi Shankar Official Website
- Audio excerpts from a 2000 interview for the BBC
- Ravi Shankar Interview
- Stream and interview of his 80th birthday
- EMI Biography
- Lycos Profile
- Guiness Record for longest International Career