13.12.12

Pandit Ravi Shankar 1920 - 2012



Pandit Ravi Shankar, whose mastery over the sitar helped rejuvenate the classical instrumental tradition in India and popularise Indian music in the West through concerts and collaborations with well known artists, died in San Diego, U.S.
In a career spanning more than eight decades, Shankar was honoured in India and across the world with several awards including the Bharat Ratna and the Grammies.
The legendary musician and composer suffered upper-respiratory and heart ailments over the past year and underwent heart-valve replacement surgery last Thursday. Ravi Shankar is survived by his wife Sukanya, daughters Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar Wright.
An active musician for virtually his entire lifetime, Pandit Ravi Shankar found performing, particularly touring, increasingly difficult only in the past few months. Despite his deteriorating health, he gave a spectacular performance on November 4 in Long Beach, California, along with his daughter, sitarist Anoushka Shankar Wright. This, in what was to be his final public performance was, in fact, billed as a celebration of his tenth decade of creating music.
Pandit Ravi Shankar – among the contenders for the next Grammy Award – was a pioneer in taking Indian classical music to a global audience. Through his collaborations with celebrated artistes such as world renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin and rock star George Harrison of The Beatles, Ravi Shankar set a new idiom in what is called fusion music today.

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