SHANKAR, Ravi (The Concert for Bangla Desh)

(1920– ), Indian sitarist (see Indian Music; Music), composer, and educator, one of the foremost musicians of India, and the first to receive international acclaim.

Born in Varanasi (Benares), on April 7, 1920, he danced as a child in the Parisian troupe of his brother, the choreographer Uday Shankar. The influence of Ravi Shankar's training under the noted Indian musician Ustad Allaudin Khan (1881–1972) can be seen in his inventive style and unusual, asymmetric rhythms. Through his work with All-India Radio, he composed many radio scores and film scores (including Pather Panchali, 1955), and ballets based on texts of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (including Samanya Kshati, 1961). Subsequent compositions include two concertos for sitar and orchestra (1970; 1981) and the film score for Gandhi (1982).

Shankar established Indian music and art academies in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. His innovative cross-cultural experiments utilized traditional Indian instruments, often combined with electronic instruments, for both Western and Eastern music. In the 1960s Shankar taught sitar to George Harrison (1943–2001) of the British rock group the Beatles, performed with the American-born British violinist Yehudi Menuhin, and made a successful concert tour of the U.S. (1967–68). The album The Concert for Bangla Desh (1972), on which Shankar appeared along with Harrison, the American folk singer Bob Dylan, and others, received a Grammy Award (see National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences) as album of the year. Other albums include Tana Mana (1987); Ravi Shankar Inside the Kremlin (1989); and Passages (1990), a collaboration with the American minimalist composer Philip Glass.

Shankar served a 6-year term (1986–92) in the Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament. His numerous international honors include the Polar Music Prize (1998), granted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and the Bharat Ratna (1999), the Indian government's highest civilian award; in 2000, the French government made him a Commander of the Legion of Honor. His memoir, My Music, My Life, was published in 1968; a second autobiographical volume, Raga Mala, appeared in 1998.

Shankar's two daughters are both musicians in their own right. Anoushka Shankar (1982– ) was trained by her father as a sitar player and they perform and tour together, while his other daughter, Norah Jones (1979– ), is a Grammy-winning singer and pianist, whose music is a mix of jazz and pop.