Pandit Ravi Shankar Bengali Devanagari Pandit Sanskrit learned is honorific born April 7 1920 in Benares United Provinces British India is a Bengali Indian sitar player and composer. He is a disciple of Baba Allauddin Khan the founder of the Maihar gharana of Hindustani classical music.
Ravi Shankar is the leading Indian musician of the modern era. He has been a longtime musical collaborator of tabla-players Pandit Chatur Lal and Ustad Allah Rakha and intermittently also of sarod-player Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. His collaborations with violinist Yehudi Menuhin film maker Satyajit Ray and the The Beatles in particular George Harrison added to his international reputation.
In 1999 Ravi Shankar was awarded the Bharat Ratna award Indias highest civilian honor.
He is the brother of renowned dancer Uday Shankar uncle of fellow Indian musician Ananda Shankar and the father of singer Norah Jones and sitarist Anoushka Shankar who were born in 1979 and 1981 to Sue Jones and Sukanya Shankar respectively.
Musical career
Ravi Shankar not only studied under Allaudin Khan His father lived with him as if he were his son. This type of mentorship is typical of the Indian Classical music tradition. Ravis 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 HMVs Indian affiliate. He became music director of All India Radio in the 1950s. From 1946 onwards he began to compose original music for films. Some of his most noted scores include the ones for Satyajit Rays Apu Trilogy and Richard Attenboroughs Gandhi.
Ravi 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.
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 see 1970 Bhola cyclone Bangladesh Liberation War and 1971 Bangladesh atrocities that was occurring in East Pakistan now independent Bangladesh where Shankars family origins lay.
Ravi Shankar & Friends co-headlined Harrisons 1974 tour of North America with mixed reviews. His final working album with Harrison was on a 1997 album Chants of India where Harrison grew an interest in chant music. After his colleagues death on 29 November in 2001 after a long fight against cancer Shankar his daughter Anoushka along with Paul McCartney Ringo Starr Jeff Lynne Eric Clapton Tom Petty Billy Preston among many others attended Concert for George in London where Shankar dedicated the memorial to Harrison.
Shankar has been critical of some facets of the Western reception of Indian music. On a trip to San Franciscos 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. In 2002 Ravi and his daughter Anoushka played at The Concert For George. 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 Glasss 2004 composition Orion.
Ravi Shankar has homes in Encinitas California; Warren New Jersey and New Delhi Delhi India.
Honours
Shankar is an honorary member of the and is a member of the United Nations after years of struggle and rejection from the world. 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 Asian Culture Prize 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 Indias upper house of Parliament for six years. In 2002 he was conferred the inaugural Indian Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award. The Bharat Ratna Indias highest civilian honour was awarded to him in 1999. In 1998 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize with Ray Charles. He shared an Academy Award nomination with George Fenton for Best Original Score to Gandhi 1982.
Discography
Three Ragas 1956
Improvisations 1962
Indias Most Distinguished Musician 1962
Indias Master Musician 1963
In London 1964
Ragas & Talas 1964
Portrait of Genius 1964
Sound of the Sitar 1965
Live at Monterey 1967
In San Francisco 1967
West Meets East 1967
At the Monterey Pop Festival 1967
The Exotic Sitar and Sarod 1967
A Morning Raga An Evening Raga 1968
The Sounds of India 1968
In New York 1968
Woodstock Festival 1969
The Concert for Bangladesh 1971
Transmigration Macabre SOUNDTRACK 1973
Homage to Mahatma Gandhi 1981
Räga-Mälä Sitar Concerto No. 2 1982
Pandit Ravi Shankar 1986
Tana Mana 1987
Inside The Kremlin 1988
Passages with Philip Glass 1990
Concert for Peace Royal Albert Hall 1995
Chants of India 1997
Concerto for Sitar & Orchestra with Andre Previn 1999
Full Circle Carnegie Hall 2000 2001
Flowers of India 2007
Between Two Worlds Documentary-directed by [Mark Kidel] 2001
Films
Prominently figures in D.A. Pennebakers classic documentary Monterey Pop
Performed music for the animated short A Chairy Tale directed by Norman McLaren
Music Direction Apu Trilogy directed by Satyajit Ray
Composed original score for Alice in Wonderland 1966 directed by Jonathan Miller
Chappaqua 1966 directed by Conrad Rooks
Raga 1971 directed by Howard Worth
The Concert for Bangladesh 1971
Music for Gandhi directed by Richard Attenborough Academy Award nomination for Shankar
Concert for George 2003
Forbidden Image directed by Jeremy Marre
Charly directed by Ralph Nelson
Woodstock The Movie
Anuradha- Composed the soundtrack for this 1960 Hindi movie
Composed for a Brit art film Viola with an album entitled Transmigration Macabre
Bibliography
Raga Mala 1997 Autobiography edited by George Harrison
Learning Indian music A systematic approach 1979
My Music My Life 1968 Autobiography
Music memory 1967
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