(b Varanasi, 7 April 1920). Indian sitār player and composer. After spending the first decade of his life in Varanasi, Ravi was taken by his eldest brother Uday to his headquarters in Paris to participate in his dance company. There and in extensive world tours until 1938 he came to know and hear many of the great composers and musicians of that time, experiences which would help him to bridge cultural gaps between India and other nations in his adult years. In 1935 Uday Shankar invited the performer and teacher ‘Baba’ Allauddin Khan to tour Europe for one year as a soloist with the troupe. During this tour Allauddin Khan initiated Shankar’s formal training in Indian classical music. In 1938, Shankar left the troupe and his dancing career to undergo seven and a half years of rigorous training under Allauddin Khan’s strict tutelage in the traditional gurūkul system at Maihar, where Khan served as the chief court musician of the Maharaja. There Shankar learnt the Sitār, the sūrbahār and the forms of dhrupad-dhamār as well as the techniques of the bīn, the rabāb and the sursingār in the style of the Seniā gharānā of Tansen, the legendary musician of the Mughal emperor Akbar’s court.
He began his career of solo concert performance on the sitār in 1939 and quickly rose to the forefront of young artists (see illustration). His sitār style was distinct from those of his contemporaries. Drawing inspiration from the rhythmic practices of South Indian classical music, Shankar fashioned a unique approach to elaborating the Indian rāga system. He synthesized his knowledge of numerous instrumental and vocal genres gained during the broad-based training that he received from his gurū to develop a distinctive approach to the concert format. In his repertory he maintains a dhrupad approach to the solo ālāp-jor-jhālā, a khayāl-inspired approach to slow instrumental compositions (vilambit gat), and a late-19th century instrumental approach to fast compositions (drut gat). Beyond this core of his repertory, Shankar draws heavily on the light-hearted and erotic themes of thumrī in the closing numbers of his performances. During the formative stages of his career, Shankar contributed to the development of new technical practices on the sitār, modifying the instrument in consultation with Nodu Mullick, who was later to manufacture several sitārs of high tonal quality for Shankar. He perfected the elaboration of the bass octave on the sitār, a depth of range that few sitār players had included on their instruments prior to Shankar’s popularization of this within his ālāp. He developed a new right-hand plectrum (mizrāb) technique that allowed for greater clarity and an increased dynamic range. Shankar also helped to popularize a duet style of performance known as jugal-bandī that paired the sitār with the sarod. He has added several new rāgas to the Hindustani system including Tilak Śyām, Parameśvarī, Nat Bhairav, Ahīr Lalit, Bairāgī and Cārukaums.
In 1949 Shankar was appointed director of music by All-India Radio and served as composer-conductor for its newly proposed instrumental ensemble (vrinda vādya). He stayed there until 1956, when he began making frequent visits to the United States and Europe. During his late seventies he continued to give between 25 and 40 concerts annually around the world as India’s most sought-after classical musician. His liberal outlook brought him into musical collaborations with a diverse set of musicians including the former Beatle George Harrison, who also became Shankar’s student, Yehudi Menuhin, Zubin Mehta and Philip Glass. He composed music for several films, including Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He composed music placing his sitār in combination with the Western orchestra in two concertos and has composed and improvised music combining the sitār with the Western flute and the Japanese koto. Among his thousands of compositions for solo instruments, voice and ensembles is his melody for the popular national song of India, ‘Sāre jahā se acchā …’, and his CD Chants of India.
Shankar has received numerous titles, honorary doctorates and other accolades including the highest award bestowed by the Government of India on an artist, the Padma Vibhusan, and the highest award bestowed on an individual by the Government of Japan, the Praemium Imperiale. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha of the Parliament of the Government of India in 1986. He is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a member of the United Nations International Rostrum of Composers. In 1997 he was named a regent’s professor at the University of California.
Chants of India, perf. R. Shankar, Angel Records 7243 8 55948 2 3 (1997)
STEPHEN SLAWEK