Name	Ashwin Batish
Background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
Born	Bombay, India
Instruments	sitar, tabla, santoor, dilruba, singing
Genre	Indian classical and Folk music
Occupation	Musician
Years active	1970 – present
Label	Batish Records
Associated acts	Keshav Batish, S D Batish, Meena Batish
Url	Personal web pages for Ashwin Batish

Ashwin Kumar Batish Hindi: अशविन कुमार बातिश(born 1951 in Bombay, India) is a sitar and tabla player best known for rekindling interest in the sitar among young Indians.

A child prodigy, Ashwin, at a tender age of 5, would often sing with his sister Meena Batish at performances organized by his father, the composer, author, Bollywood playback singer and music director Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish (hindi: पन्डित षिव दयाल बातिश). His mother Shrimati Shanta Devi Batish (Hindi: श्रिमति शान्ता देवी बातिश), was an All India Radio artist and is credited for starting young Ashwin on the dholak drum around the age of seven and on the sitar around the age of 12.

When Ashwin's father took him to see his friend Ashok, the son of the great music director and harmonium wizard Pandit Bhagatram (Hindi: पन्डित भगतराम), Ashwin fell in love with the sitar. Ashok was only 2 years older than Ashwin and seeing his friend perform made Ashwin think that he could too.

In 1964, Ashwin's father left India to visit one of his daughters in England. Ashwin turned to his mother and shared with her his secret wish to play the sitar. She immediately bought him a student model sitar and started him off having studied the sitar when she was young. She was happy to show him basic technique and introduced him to some simple songs. With no direction from his father, Ashwin started to play whatever he found exciting. His mother had also presented him with some sitar albums by the great Pandit Ravi Shankar (Hindi: पन्डित रवि शन्कर). Ashwin would listen and copy all the songs to the best of his abilities. At the same time, he was also a great fan of the Beatles, Cliff Richards, Pat Boone and other pop singers of the 50's era. Ashwin wasted no time in whipping out the songs he heard from these Western artists.

It was when Ashwin joined his father in England at around age 14 that he started receiving training from him on the intricacies of North Indian classical music. Ashwin also started learning compositions in various ragas. His father would often sing and have Ashwin copy the musical phrases. He also taught Ashwin many songs based in various ragas he had studied with his Guruji Shri Chandan Ram Charan (Hindi: श्रि चन्दन राम चरन). This new direction was exciting for Ashwin: He would sit patiently and play these songs until he fully mastered them. By age 16, Ashwin had started to accompany his father on various programs. He also started getting calls to play for college nights for which a local tabla player would accompany him. One such memorable event was when he performed for an OXFAM benefit in England.

Soloing in front of a live audience, without his father by his side, made Ashwin realize how much more he needed to learn, and he became an earnest disciple of his father. Ashwin was put on a rigorous practice schedule. The cold English weather meant that there was only one warm room in the house where all his family would gather. The noise of the TV, happy conversations, children doing their homework were all delicate ears that left little room for the groans and moans and wild antics and acrobatics of a young sitar student. Ashwin would often play his sitar and tabla at peak volume which, although acoustic, would often irritate the other siblings. To Ashwin's advantage and delight, his father would always give his playing the preference to the dismay of Ashwin's brothers and sisters. While his siblings strained to enjoy the British movies and serials on the TV, Ashwin started to show improvement in his playing. On one such day, Ashwin was going strong and practicing away. When he stopped playing, there was silence in the room. All his family members were looking at him and he saw his siblings nodding and showing appreciation at what he had just played. This was quite a breakthrough and a personal milestone which Ashwin silently enjoyed. Ashwin learnt from this experience and started to tune in to this new sense of expressive musical attraction. He fine-tuned this ability in his live performances.

Going to school, trying to become a Chartered Accountant and discovering beer were typical distractions that prevented young Ashwin from playing full time, and at 20, Ashwin found himself working full time for a group of Chartered Accountants as a apprentice popularly known as an "articled clerk." When he turned up at the job in long hair and jeans, he was promptly pulled aside by his employers and given a lecture on attire. While Ashwin ignored these admonishments from his bosses and fellow clerks, despite threats of being giving menial tasks if he did not comply, Ashwin was finding that being part of the workforce was in complete contrast to his lifestyle as a performer. His bold defiance continued, to the dismay of his employer and to the delight of his fellow clerks!

Ashwin is presently teaching Indian music at his music school in Santa Cruz, California. His website is sitarpower.com. Ashwin was one of the pioneers on the world wide web credited with some of the very first Indian music-related websites which he ran on the Gopher platform via the early University of California, Santa Cruz system . He also publishes an online magazine that is mostly educational in nature called RagaNet. It provides regular lessons on sitar, tabla, Dilruba, History of India music, etc. Articles on musical instruments of India are also a regular feature.

Although his training has been in North Indian classical music, Ashwin Batish has been equally at home with Western music often performing with jazz and rock musicians. His 80's fling with fusion music he self titled Sitar Power was instrumental in garnering him serious airplay including a recording contract with Shanachie Records of New Jersey. He did not last long at Shanachie due to disappointing sales reports and lack of support. Ashwin soon formed his own record label, Batish Records to publish all his family's works.

Ashwin continues to be active in the field of Indian music and is currently teaching at the Batish Institute of Indian Music and Fine Arts in Santa Cruz. His father passing in the year 2006 dealt a severe blow to Ashwin's energies and after a long period of inactivity Ashwin has found a new direction. In remembrance and as a dedication to his father's memory and contribution to the music world, Ashwin has embarked upon a very special venture into broadcasting. This has given a voice to over 50 years of archived audio and video content. The web site www.ragmala.com - Ragmala Radio and Television Streams media, audio and video 24/7 providing a glimpse into the rich musical heritage of the Batish family. It is also intended to be highly educational in nature thus fulfilling the intent of Ashwin's father to help spread this wealth of musical knowledge to the rest of the world.

Ashwin has been actively spreading his brand of classical and fusion music by creating portals on social networks such as Myspace and Facebook. His music can be heard on the music portal called Reverbnation where his music is charting in the top 20 in the in the World Music category (as of date: 10/21/2010).

References

Category:1951 births Category:Living people Category:Sitar players Category:People from Santa Cruz, California Category:Tabla players

, 1943]] Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE (April 22, 1916 – March 12, 1999) was a Russian Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Russian Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985. He is often considered to have been one of the twentieth century's greatest violin virtuosi.

Early life and career

(1931) According to Henry A. Murray, Menuhin wrote: "Actually, I was gazing in my usual state of being half absent in my own world and half in the present. I have usually been able to 'retire' in this way. I was also thinking that my life was tied up with the instrument and would I do it justice?" (Yehudi Menuhin, personal communication, 31 October, 1993). ]] Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City, New York, to Bielorussian Jewish parents from what is now Belarus. His sisters were the concert pianist and human rights worker Hephzibah Menuhin and the pianist, painter, and poet Yaltah Menuhin. Through his father Moshe Menuhin, a former rabbinical student and anti-Zionist writer, Menuhin was descended from a distinguished rabbinical dynasty.

Menuhin began violin instruction at age four under violinist Sigmund Anker; his parents had wanted Louis Persinger to be his teacher, but Persinger refused. He displayed extraordinary talents at an early age. His first solo violin performance was at the age of seven with the San Francisco Symphony in 1923. Persinger then agreed to take Menuhin as a student. When the Menuhins went to Paris, Persinger suggested Yehudi go to his own teacher, Eugène Ysaÿe. He did have one lesson with Ysaÿe, but did not like his method or the fact that he was very old.

Menuhin made several recordings with the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who had been criticized for conducting in Germany during the Nazi era. Menuhin defended Furtwängler, noting that the conductor had helped a number of Jewish musicians to flee Nazi Germany.

In 1962 he established the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey. He also established the music program at the Nueva School in Hillsborough, California sometime around then. In 1965 he received an honorary knighthood. In the same year, Australian composer Malcolm Williamson wrote a violin concerto for Menuhin. He performed the concerto many times and recorded it at its premiere at the Bath Festival in 1965.

Menuhin also had a long association with Ravi Shankar, which began with their 1966 album West Meets East. During this time, he commissioned the composer Alan Hovhaness to write a concerto for violin, sitar, and orchestra to be performed by himself and Shankar. The resulting work entitled Shambala (c.1970), with a fully composed violin part and space for improvisation from the sitarist, is the earliest known work for sitar with western symphony orchestra, predating Shankar’s own sitar concertos; unfortunately, Menuhin and Shankar never recorded it. Menuhin also worked with famous jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli in the 1970s on Jalousie, an album of pop music of the 1930s arranged in chamber style.

In 1977, at the Edinburgh Festival, he premiered Priaulx Rainier's violin concerto Due Canti e Finale, a work he had commissioned from her. He also commissioned her last work, Wildlife Celebration, which he performed in aid of Gerald Durrell's Wildlife Conservation Trust.

In 1983, he and Robert Masters founded the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists. Now one of the world's leading competition for young violinists, many of its prize winners have gone on to become some of today’s most exciting violinists. Among them are Tasmin Little, Nikolaj Znaider, Ilya Gringolts, Julia Fischer, Daishin Kashimoto and Lara St. John.

In 1991 he was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize by the Israeli Government. In the Israeli Knesset he gave an acceptance speech in which he criticised Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank with these words,

"This wasteful governing by fear, by contempt for the basic dignities of life, this steady asphyxiation of a dependent people, should be the very last means to be adopted by those who themselves know too well the awful significance, the unforgettable suffering of such an existence. It is unworthy of my great people, the Jews, who have striven to abide by a code of moral rectitude for some 5,000 years, who can create and achieve a society for themselves such as we see around us but can yet deny the sharing of its great qualities and benefits to those dwelling amongst them."

In 1997 Yehudi Menuhin and Ian Stoutzker founded the charity Live Music Now, the largest outreach music project in the UK. Live Music Now pays and trains professional musicians to work in the community, bringing joy and comfort to those who rarely get an opportunity to hear or see live music performance.

Menuhin's pupils included Nigel Kennedy, Nicola Benedetti, Hungarian violist Csaba Erdélyi, and violist Paul Coletti. Arguably the most famous of Menuhin's violins is the Lord Wilton Guarneri del Gesù made in 1742.

In the 1980s Menuhin wrote and oversaw the creation of a "Music Guides" series of books; each covered musical instruments, with one on the human voice. Menuhin wrote some, while others were edited by different authors.

Later career

Menuhin regularly returned to the San Francisco Bay Area, sometimes performing with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. One of the more memorable later performances was of Elgar's Violin Concerto, which Menuhin had recorded with the composer in 1932.

On 22 April 1978 along with Stéphane Grappelli, Yehudi played Pick Yourself Up, taken from the Menuhin & Grappelli Play Berlin, Kern, Porter and Rodgers & Hart album as the interval act at the 23rd Eurovision Song Contest for TF1. The performance came direct from the studios of TF1 and not that of the venue (Palais des Congrès) from where the contest was held.

He also hosted the PBS telecast of the gala opening concert of the San Francisco Symphony from Davies Symphony Hall in September 1980.

During the 1970s, '80s and '90s, he made jazz recordings with Stéphane Grappelli, classical recordings with L. Subramaniam and albums of Eastern music with the great sitarist Ravi Shankar. In 1983 he founded the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists in Folkestone, Kent.

His recording contract with EMI lasted almost 70 years and is the longest in the history of the music industry. He made his first recording at age 13 in November 1929, and his last in 1999 at age 82. In total he recorded over 300 works for EMI, both as a violinist and as a conductor. In 2009 EMI released a 51-CD retrospective of Menuhin's recording career, titled Yehudi Menuhin: The Great EMI Recordings.

In 1990 he was the first conductor for the Asian Youth Orchestra which toured around Asia, including Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong with Julian Lloyd Webber and a group of young talented musicians from all over Asia.

Personal life

captured at the Annual Meeting 1999 of the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland]] Yehudi Menuhin was married twice. He first married Nola Nicholas, daughter of an Australian industrialist, and sister of Hephzibah Menuhin's first husband Lindsay Nicholas. They had two children, Krov and Zamira (the ex-wife of pianist Fou Ts'ong). Following their divorce in 1947, he married the British ballerina and actress Diana Gould, whose mother was the pianist Evelyn Suart (who had played with artists such as Eugène Ysaÿe and Karel Halíř), and whose stepfather was Admiral Sir Cecil Harcourt. Menuhin and Gould had two sons, Gerard and Jeremy, a pianist. Another child died shortly after birth.

The name Yehudi means 'Jew' in Hebrew. In an interview published in October 2004, he recounted to New Internationalist magazine the story of his name:

Obliged to find an apartment of their own, my parents searched the neighbourhood and chose one within walking distance of the park. Showing them out after they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her mistake made clear to her, the antisemitic landlady was renounced, and another apartment found. But her blunder left its mark. Back on the street my mother made a vow. Her unborn baby would have a label proclaiming his race to the world. He would be called "The Jew."

A picture of Menuhin as a child is sometimes used as part of a Thematic Apperception Test.

Lord Menuhin died in Berlin, Germany following a brief illness, from complications of bronchitis.

Soon after his death, the Royal Academy of Music acquired the Yehudi Menuhin Archive, one of the most comprehensive collections ever assembled by an individual musician.

Violins

Menuhin used a number of famous violins including the Giovanni Bussetto 1680, the Giovanni Grancino 1695, the Guarneri filius Andrea 1703, the Soil Stradivarius, the Prince Khevenhüller 1733 Stradivari, the Guarneri del Gesù 1739, and the Lord Wilton 1742 Guarneri del Gesù.

Awards and honours

In 1965, Menuhin was awarded the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh, Scotland

In 1965, while he was still an American citizen, he was made an honorary Knight of the Order of the British Empire. This entitled him to use the postnominal letters KBE, but not to style himself Sir Yehudi. After Menuhin gained British citizenship in 1985, his knighthood was upgraded to a substantive one, and he became Sir Yehudi Menuhin KBE.

In 1968, he received the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding

In 1972, he was awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Prize (Denmark)

In 1983, he was nominated as president of the Elgar Society

In 1986, he received Kennedy Center Honors

In 1987, he was appointed a member of the Order of Merit

In 1987, his recording of Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor with Julian Lloyd Webber won the BRIT Award for Best British Classical Recording. The recording was also chosen by BBC Music Magazine as the finest version ever recorded.

In 1990, he was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize in recognition of his lifetime of contributions.

In 1992, he was announced as an Ambassador of Goodwill by UNESCO.

In 1993, he was made a life peer, as Baron Menuhin of Stoke d'Abernon in the County of Surrey.

He was awarded honorary doctorates by 20 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews and Vrije Universiteit Brussel

In the European Parliament in Brussels, the room in which concerts and performances are held is called the "Yehudi Menuhin Space"

He was a Freeman of the cities of Edinburgh, Bath, Reims and Warsaw

He held the Gold Medals of the cities of Paris, New York and Jerusalem

Cultural references

The catchphrase "Who's Yehoodi?" popular in the 1930s and 1940s was inspired by Menuhin's guest appearance on a radio show, where Jerry Colonna turned "Yehoodi" into a widely recognized slang term for a mysteriously absent person. It eventually lost all of its original connection with Menuhin.

Yehudi Menuhin was also 'meant' to appear on The Morecambe and Wise Show but couldn't as he was 'opening at the Argyl Theatre, Birkenhead in Old King Cole'. He was instead replaced by Eric Morecambe in a famous sketch featuring the conductor André Previn

Yehudi Menuhin was referenced in an episode of the US television series Sports Night. The episode, "Celebrities", featured an after hours game of Celebrities among the Sports Night staff. Dan Rydell, one of the fictional show’s co-anchors, gave clues to his teammates in a game of Celebrities, trying to get them to guess the name Yehudi Menuhin. He had shown his co-anchor, Casey McCall, a secret hand gesture that would clue him in to say “Yehudi Menuhin”, but during the game, Casey forgot the secret signal, and couldn't recall Menuhin's name.

Menuhin was also mentioned a number of times in Pat Conroy's novel The Prince of Tides.

Bibliography

Films

1943 – Menuhin was a featured performer in the 1943 film, Stage Door Canteen. Introduced only as "Mr. Menuhin," he performed two violin solos, "Ave Maria" and "Flight of the Bumble Bee" for an audience of service men, volunteer hostesses and celebrities from stage and screen.

1979 – The Music of Man (television series)

The Mind of Music

References

External links

The Official website for Yehudi Menuhin

Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists

Text and pictures from Yehudi Menuhin by french film director Bruno Monsaingeon

Yehudi Menuhin Center Saanen/Gstaad Schweiz

Yehudiana, Reliving the Menuhin Odyssey. A book, by Philip Bailey

International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation

The International Music School Founded by Yehudi Menuhin

Live Music Now – Charity founded by Yehudi Menuhin

PBS Series American Masters Yehudi Menuhin

YouTube-Elgar Performance

From the Sitar to the Guitar – The 1995 concerts featuring Yehudi Menuhin and Ravi Shankar

Youtube Paganini Concerto: Third Movement

Youtube: Paganini's Moto Perpetuo

Yehudi Menuhin playing duos in the parc des Buttes Chaumont, Paris

New biography (Yehudiana, a Menuhin family biography).

Yehudi Menuhin's life in Alma

Interviews

Yehudi Menuhin interview by Bruce Duffie, January 31, 1987

Category:1916 births Category:1999 deaths Category:American classical violinists Category:American jazz violinists Category:American conductors (music) Category:American vegetarians Category:American autobiographers Category:British classical violinists Category:British conductors (music) Category:British Jews Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Jewish American artists Category:Jewish classical musicians Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Category:Life peers Category:Naturalised citizens of Switzerland Category:Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Category:People from New York City

Category:Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medallists Category:Recipients of the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade Category:Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Category:American immigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Jewish violinists Category:Honorary Members of the Royal Philharmonic Society Category:People from Highgate Category:Members of the Order of Merit

Name	Ravi Shankar
Img alt	An old man sits on a platform and holds a long-necked lute while looking to the side.
Background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
Birth name	Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury
Born	April 07, 1920Varanasi, United Provinces, Indian Empire
Instrument	sitar
Genre	Hindustani classical music
Occupation	composer, musician
Years active	1939–present
Url	RaviShankar.org
Associated acts	Uday Shankar, Allauddin Khan, Ali Akbar Khan, Lakshmi Shankar, Yehudi Menuhin, Chatur Lal, Alla Rakha, George Harrison, Anoushka Shankar

Ravi Shankar (; born 7 April 1920), often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.

Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956.

In 1956, he began to tour Europe and America playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison of The Beatles. Shankar engaged Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1986 to 1992 he served as a nominated member of the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999, and received three Grammy Awards. He continues to perform in the 2000s, often with his daughter Anoushka.

Early life

Shankar was born 7 April 1920 in Varanasi to a wealthy and conservative Brahmin family of cultured Bengalis as the youngest of seven brothers. Shankar's Bengali birth name was Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury. Shyam was married to Shankar's mother Hemangini Devi, but later worked as a lawyer in London. By the age of 13 he had become a member of the group, accompanied its members on tour and learned to dance and play various Indian instruments. Shankar heard the lead musician for the Maihar court, Allauddin Khan, in December 1934 at a music conference in Kolkata and Uday convinced the Maharaja of Maihar in 1935 to allow Khan to become his group's soloist for a tour of Europe. Shankar gave up his dancing career in 1938 to go to Maihar and study Indian classical music as Khan's pupil, living with his family in the traditional gurukul system. He often studied with Khan's children Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna Devi.

Shankar completed his training in 1944. Shankar recomposed the music for the popular song "Sare Jahan Se Achcha" at the age of 25. He began to record music for HMV India and worked as a music director for All India Radio (AIR), New Delhi, from February 1949 to January 1956. Beginning in the mid-1950s he composed the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, which became internationally acclaimed.

International career 1956–1969

, who was a frequent accompanist of Shankar, in 1988]] V. K. Narayana Menon, director of AIR Delhi, introduced the Western violinist Yehudi Menuhin to Shankar during Menuhin's first visit to India in 1952. Shankar had performed as part of a cultural delegation in the Soviet Union in 1954 and Menuhin invited Shankar in 1955 to perform in New York City for a demonstration of Indian classical music, sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Shankar declined to attend due to problems in his marriage, but recommended Ali Akbar Khan to play instead.

Shankar heard about the positive response Khan received and resigned from AIR in 1956 to tour the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. He played for smaller audiences and educated them about Indian music, incorporating ragas from the South Indian Carnatic music in his performances, and recorded his first LP album Three Ragas in London, released in 1956.

Shankar befriended Richard Bock, founder of World Pacific Records, on his first American tour and recorded most of his albums in the 1950s and 1960s for Bock's label. Harrison became interested in Indian classical music, bought a sitar and used it to record the song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". This led to Indian music being used by other musicians and created the raga rock trend. During the visit, a documentary film about Shankar named Raga was shot by Howard Worth, and released in 1971. Shankar's association with Harrison greatly increased Shankar's popularity and Ken Hunt of Allmusic would state that Shankar had become "the most famous Indian musician on the planet" by 1966. The same year, the Beatles won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which included "Within You Without You" by Harrison, a song that was influenced by Indian classical music.

International career 1970–present

In October 1970 Shankar became chair of the department of Indian music of the California Institute of the Arts after previously teaching at the City College of New York, the University of California, Los Angeles, and being guest lecturer at other colleges and universities, including the Ali Akbar College of Music. Hans Neuhoff of Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart has criticized the usage of the orchestra in this concert as "amateurish".

During the 1970s, Shankar and Harrison worked together again, recording Shankar Family and Friends in 1974 and touring North America to a mixed response after Shankar had toured Europe. The demanding North America tour weakened Shankar, and he suffered a heart attack in Chicago in September 1974, causing him to cancel a portion of the tour. In his absence, Shankar's sister-in-law, singer Lakshmi Shankar, conducted the touring orchestra. Shankar was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score for his work on the 1982 movie Gandhi, but lost to John Williams' E.T. He served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Parliament of India, from 12 May 1986 to 11 May 1992, after being nominated by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Shankar composed the dance drama Ghanashyam in 1989. Because of the positive response to Shankar's 1996 career compilation In Celebration, Shankar wrote a second autobiography, Raga Mala, with Harrison as editor. In the 2000s, he won a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album for and toured with Anoushka, who released a book about her father, Bapi: Love of My Life, in 2002. Anoushka performed a composition by Shankar for the 2002 Harrison memorial Concert for George and Shankar wrote a third concerto for sitar and orchestra for Anoushka and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Shankar played his last European concert in June 2008. Hans Neuhoff of Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart has argued that Shankar's playing style was not widely adopted and that he was surpassed by other sitar players in the performance of melodic passages. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 1962, and was named a Fellow of the academy for 1975. Shankar was awarded the three highest national civil honors of India: Padma Bhushan, in 1967, Padma Vibhushan, in 1981, and Bharat Ratna, in 1999. He received the music award of the UNESCO International Music Council in 1975, three Grammy Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Shankar is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1997 received the Praemium Imperiale for music from the Japan Art Association.

Personal life and family

Shankar married Allauddin Khan's daughter Annapurna Devi in 1941 and a son, Shubhendra Shankar, was born in 1942. An affair with Sue Jones, a New York concert producer, led to the birth of Norah Jones in 1979. He could play the sitar and surbahar, but elected not to pursue a solo career and died in 1992. Anoushka Shankar was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album in 2003. He lives with Sukanya in Southern California.

Discography

Bibliography

Notes

References

External links

Category:1920 births Category:Apple Records artists Category:Bengali musicians Category:Nominated Rajya Sabha members Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Hindustani instrumentalists Category:Indian composers Category:Indian film score composers Category:Indian Hindus Category:Indian vegetarians Category:Living people Category:Maihar Gharana Category:Ramon Magsaysay Award winners Category:Recipients of the Bharat Ratna Category:Recipients of the Padma Bhushan Category:Recipients of the Padma Vibhushan Category:Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award Category:Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship Category:Sitar players Category:Artists from Varanasi

Name	Nikhil Banerjee
Background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
Born	October 14, 1931
Died	January 27, 1986
Origin	Kolkata, India
Instrument	Sitar
Genre	Hindustani classical music
Occupation	Composer, Sitarist

Nikhil Ranjan Banerjee () (14 October 1931 – 27 January 1986) was a prominent Indian sitar player of the 20th century.

Early life and background

Nikhil Banerjee was born in Kolkata into a Brahmin family, where music as a profession was discouraged, although his father, Jitendranath Banerjee, who was a sitarist by hobby, taught him the instrument. Young Nikhil grew into a child prodigy, won an all-India sitar competition at the age of nine and soon was playing for All India Radio. At the time, his sister was a student of khyal great Amir Khan, who became a life-long influence. Jitendranath approached Mushtaq Ali Khan to take the boy as a student, and Banerjee studied with him for his initial training.

In 1947 Banerjee met Ustad Allauddin Khan, who was to become his main guru along with his son, Ali Akbar Khan. Both were sarod players. Banerjee went to Allauddin Khan's concerts and was desperate to have him as his teacher. Allauddin Khan did not want to take on more students, but changed his mind after listening to one of Banerjee's radio broadcasts. Though Allauddin Khan was Banerjee's main teacher, he also learned from Ali Akbar Khan, the son of Allaudin Khan, for many years.

Maihar gharana

The discipline under Ustad Allauddin Khan was legendary. For years, Nikhil's practice would start at four in the morning and, with few breaks, continue to eleven o'clock at night – a schedule which was naturally hard on his fingers. Among others, Ustad Allauddin Khan also taught his son Ali Akbar Khan, grandson Aashish Khan, and nephew Bahadur Khan on the sarod; Ravi Shankar on the sitar; his daughter, Annapurna Devi, on the surbahar; Pannalal Ghosh on the flute; and Vasant Rai the sarod.

Ustad Allauddin Khan was passing on not only playing technique but the musical knowledge and approach of the Maihar gharana (school); yet there was a definite trend in his teaching to infuse the sitar and sarod with the been-baj aesthetic of the Rudra veena, surbahar and sursringar – long, elaborate alap (unaccompanied improvisation) built on intricate meend work (bending of the note). He was also well known for adjusting his teaching to his particular students' strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, under his teaching, Shankar and Banerjee developed different sitar styles.

Although Banerjee did not have many students and fewer disciples, his eldest and most prominent disciple, Pandit Sukhraj Jhalla, continues to live and teach in Ahmedabad, India today.

Robert Palmer of The New York Times wrote of Mr. Banerjee's Carnegie Hall performance November(1985): "The extraordinary fluidity and assurance of his rhythmic ideas and phrasing set a pace and a standard that would have left most of the international 'stars' of Indian music far behind."

Performing career

After Maihar, Banerjee embarked on a concert career that was to take him to all corners of the world and last right up to his death. All through his life he kept taking lessons from Ustad Allauddin Khan and his children, Ustad Ali Akbar and Smt. Annapurna Devi. Perhaps reflecting his early upbringing, he always remained a humble musician, and was content with much less limelight than a player of his stature could have vied for. For him, music-making was a spiritual rather than a worldly path:

:"Indian music is based on spiritualism; that is the first word, you must keep it in your mind. Many people misunderstand and think it's got something to do with religion – no, absolutely no! Nothing to do with religion, but spiritualism – Indian music was practiced and learned to know the Supreme Truth. Mirabai, Thyagaraja from the South, Haridas Swami, Baiju – all these great composers and musicians were wandering saints; they never came into society, nor performed in society."

Even so, in 1968, he was decorated with the Padma Shri. Banerjee recorded only a handful of recordings during his lifetime but a series of live recordings continue to be released posthumously making sure that his musical legacy is preserved for posterity. He did not enjoy recording within the confines of the studio, though his early studio recordings with EMI India such as Lalit, Purya Kalyan and Malkauns are now considered to be classic renditions of these ragas. The posthumous live albums, many of which were brought out around the turn of the 21st Century by Raga Records in New York, and Chhandadhara of Germany, are widely considered to be the finest documents of his playing. Today, he is regarded as one of the greatest sitarists of the 20th century.

His interpretation of ragas was usually traditional, although he would sometimes take liberties with the raga in a moment of inspiration. Some people say he created a raga Manomanjari of his own, mixing ideas from Kalavati and Puriya, while others attribute it to Ustad Allaudin Khan.

Nikhil Banerjee was in failing health through the 80s, having survived three heart attacks. On January 27, 1986, on the birthday of his younger daughter, at the relatively young age of 54, Nikhil Banerjee died of a fourth heart attack. At the time of his death, he was a faculty member at the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta. He was posthumously awarded the Padma Bhushan title by the Government of India in the same year as his death.

He is survived by his wife Roma and two daughters. His younger daughter Debdutta/Arya is a model and actress in Kolkata.

Partial discography

The following is a summary of some recent CD issues. A more comprehensive discography can be found in the external links.

Afternoon Ragas (1970)

(1982)

(1982)

(1986)

Lyrical Sitar (1991)

(1995)

(1995)

Rag Hemant (1995)

Le Sitar Du Pandit (1996)

Raga Patdeep (1996)

Live in Amsterdam 1984 (1997)

Genius of Pandit Nikhil (live) (1998)

Berkeley 1968 (1998)

(1999)

Pandit Nikhil Banerjee (live) (1999)

Total Absorption (2000)

Banerjee Live in Munich 1980 (2000)

(2000)

Musician's Musician (2001)

(2002)

(2004)

Notes

Allauddin claimed he was teaching Banerjee the sitar "style of Nawab Kutubudaulla Bahadur of Lucknow", a player not otherwise remembered. (My Maestro As I Saw Him, essay by Banerjee printed in the booklet for Afternoon Ragas, Raga Records Raga-211)

San Francisco Chronicle:

Banerjee's technique is a phenomenon, faster than cheetahs, more secure than the dollar. But he does not lean on that as most players do. It is there, at the ready, a strength to be called on when needed. It is his gentle playing that is so singular. The ease of it, highlighted by atypical (for Indian music) bits of literal reiteration create a kind of euphoric effect. The result is remarkably individual. One could spot a Banerjee performance on a radio broadcast or tape, a thing of great difficulty among Oriental musicians.

Manomanjari - a variation: some argue it's a blend of Kalavati & Marwa. In a 1979/80 [not verifiable] Calcutta concert [@Kala Mandir], as per the announcement, Mr. Banerjee played two ragas of his own creation - Manomanjari & Chandrakaushiki.

Further reading

Swapan Bandyopadhyay: "The Strings Broke Long Ago", Ananda Publishers, Kolkata

External links

http://www.raga.com/interviews/207int1.html

Category:1931 births Category:1986 deaths Category:Bengali musicians Category:Hindustani instrumentalists Category:Maihar Gharana Category:People from Kolkata Category:Recipients of the Padma Bhushan Category:Recipients of the Padma Shri Category:Sitar players