The World of the Sitar

Ravi Shankar is India's most esteemed musical ambassador and a singular phenomenon in the classical music worlds of East and West. The legendary sitarist is a composer, performer, teacher and writer and has done more for Indian music than any other musician. The youngest son of a Bengali family, Bharat Ratna Ravi Shankar was born in 1920 in Varansi (Benares), the holiest of Indian cities.

Ravi Shankar has written two concertos for sitar and orchestra, violin-sitar compositions for the late Yehudi Menuhin and himself, music for flute virtuoso Jean Pierre Rampal (photo above,) music for Hosan Yamamoto, master of the Shakuhachi and Musumi Miyashita - Koto virtuoso,

and collaborated with Phillip Glass (Passages)(photo right).





George Harrison produced and participated in two record albums, "Shankar Family & Friends" and "Festival of India", composed by Ravi Shankar who also composed extensively for films and ballets in India, Canada, Europe and the United States, including Charly, Gandhi and Apu Trilogy. This photo shows a young Anoushka Shankar.

In December 2006 a bust of Ravi Shankar was unveiled by His Royal Highness the Duke of Kent at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in London. The scuplture was specially commissioned by the Bhavan to celebrate their highly valued and long standing association with one of the world's greatest musicians. The creator of the bust was the young Italian sculptor, Davide Losi.



Sitarist of the present generation is Biswabrata Chakrabarti who demonstrates his talent as an instrumentalist and master composer but he was introduced to classical music by his grandfather, the legend Tarapada Chakraborty, early in his childhood starting with vocal training. Later he was guided by his father, Pandit Bimalendu Chakraborty, who played a major role in the formation of the unique style that he now plays. Other teachers who guided him were his uncle, Pandit Manas Chakraborty and aunt, Srimati Sreela Bandopadhyaya. He also studied tabla under the guidance of Pandit Basudev Mukherjee a disciple of Ustad Keramatulla Khan.

At the age of twelve he was introduced to Sitar by his mother, the late Srimati Meena Chakraborty, who was a fine Sitarist and was the student of Sitarist Pandit Santosh Bandopadhyaya, the disciple of Ustad Dabir Khan of Seni Gharana school. Later he took lessons from the Sitarist Pandit Ajoy Sinha Roy, the disciple of legendary Ustad Allauddin Khan and his son Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.