Legendary sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar passes away at 92

New Delhi, December 12, 2012

Pandit Ravi Shankar passes away
Legendary sitar maestro and composer Pandit Ravi Shankar passed away at a hospital in San Diego, California in the United States on Tuesday evening.
He was 92.
"With profound grief and sorrow, we mourn the passing of Pandit Ravi Shankar on December 11, 2012. He died in San Diego at 4:30 pm Pacific time. He was 92," a brief announcement on Ravi Shankar's official website said.
Reports reaching here said Ravi Shankar was admitted to the Scripps Memorial Hospital at La Jolla last Thursday after he experienced breathing difficulties. 
"With profound grief and sorrow, we mourn the passing of Pandit Ravi Shankar on December 11, 2012. He died in San Diego at 4:30 pm Pacific time. He was 92," a brief announcement on Ravi Shankar's official website said.
 
A statement from the Ravi Shankar Foundation and East Meets West Music said Ravi Shankar had suffered from upper respiratory and heart issues over the past year and had undergone heart valve replacement surgery last Thursday.
 
"Though the surgery was successful, recovery proved too difficult for the 92-year-old musician," it said.
 
The Shankar family -- his wife Sukanya Shankar and daughter Anoushka Shankar -- also issued a statement.
 
"It is with heavy hearts we write to inform you that Pandit Ravi Shankar, husband, father, and musical soul, passed away today, December 11th, 2012. 
 
"As you all know, his health has been fragile for the past several years and on Thursday he underwent a surgery that could have potentially given him a new lease of life. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the surgeons and doctors taking care of him, his body was not able to withstand the strain of the surgery. 
 
"We were at his side when he passed away. We know that you all feel our loss with us, and we thank you for all of your prayers and good wishes through this difficult time. Although it is a time for sorrow and sadness, it is also a time for all of us to give thanks and to be grateful that we were able to have him as a part of our lives. His spirit and his legacy will live on forever in our hearts and in his music," they said.
 
According to the Foundation, performing, and especially touring, had become increasingly difficult for Ravi Shankar in recent months. Despite his poor health, he had performed with his daughter Anoushka on November 4 in in Long Beach, California, in what was to be his final performane.
 
The event was, in fact, billed as a celebration of his tenth decade of creating music, the statement said.
 
"This need of Shankar’s to constantly be moving forward and creating was present even in the final years of his life as he embarked on establishing his own recording label, East Meets 
West Music. The album The Living Room Sessions, Part 1  has received a 2013 Grammy nomination, news of which reached Shankar the night prior to his surgery," it said.
 
Ravi Shankar, who maintained residences in both India and the United States, is survived by his wife Sukana, daughter Anoushka Shankar, daughter Norah Jones, three grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
 
Ravi Shankar was by far India's best known and most respected musical ambassador and will be remembered for his pioneering efforts to take Indian music to Western audiences.
He wrote three sitar concerti and several violin-sitar compositions for renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin and himself. In a long series of such collaborative efforts, he had also worked with several other big names in Western music, beginning with George Harrison, one of the Beatles, and flautist Jean Pierre Rampal and Philip Glass.
He also composed music for ballet and films in India, Canada, Europe and the United States, including the Apu Trilogy, Gandhi and Charly. He had performed at memorable concerts such as Woodstock, the Concert for Bangladesh and the Monterey Pop Festival in the mid-1960s.
The Government of India had honoured him with the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian hoour, in 1999.
During his long career, he received several other awards and honours. Among others, he was an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a member of the United Nations International Rostrum of composers. 
 
He won two Grammys and had also been honoured with the Magsaysay Award, the Fukuoka Grand Prize of Japan, the Polar Music Prize of 1998 and the Crsal Award from Davos.
 
In 1986, Ravi Shankar was nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of India's Parliament.
 
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh condoled the passing away of Ravi Shankar and describing him as a national treasure and global ambassador of India's cultural heritage.
 
"An era has passed away with Pandit Ravi Shankar. The nation joins me to pay tributes to his unsurpassable genius, his art and his humility," he said in a message.
 
Born on April 7, 1920 at Varanasi as Robindro Shaunkar Chowdhury, the youngest of seven brothers. Ravi Shankar spent his youth touring India and Europe with the dance group of the renowned Uday Shankar, his elder brother. On these trips, he learned to play various instruments, picked up French and discovered Western classical music.
 
In 1938, he gave up dancing and began studying the sitar under court musician Allauddin Khan, who had already been training him sporadically on the tours with Uday Shankar's troupe.
 
In 1944, he began working as a composer and worked on the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray. He was also associated with the Indian People's Theatre Association in Mumbai, for whom he composed music for ballets in the mid-1940s. He worked as music director of All India Radio in New Delhi from 1949 to 1956.
 
In 1956, he began touring Europe and the United States, introducing thousands of people in the West to Indian classical music through his performances and teaching. This was the period when he began his association with musicians like Menuhin and Harrison.
 
Ravi Shankar recomposed the music for the popular song, "Saare Jahan Se Achcha" at the age of 25. At All India Radio, he founded the Indian National Orchestra and composed many pieces for it, combining Western and Indian classical instrumentation.
 
As Indian classical music began to gain in popularity in the West, Ravi Shankar played for small audiences and educated them about Indian music. In 1956, he released his first LP, Three Ragas, in London.
 
He appeared at the United Nations tenth anniversary celebrations and the UNESCO music festival, and became the first Indian to compose music for a foreign film.
 
In 1962, the renowned tabla player, Ustad Alla Rakha, began playing with him, starting an association that lasted several years.
 
In October 1970, Ravi Shankar became chair of the department of Indian music of the California Institute of the Arts after a stint at the City College of New York, the University of California, Los Angeles and other institutions.
 
In the years that followed, he wrote his first concerto for the sitar, which was performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andre Previn. In 1981, he wrote his second concerto, which was conducted by the India-born Zubin Mehta. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on Gandhi in 1982, but lost to John Williams, who won for ET. In 1990, he worked on the album Passages with contemporary composer Philip Glass.
 
His third sitar concerto was played by his daughter Anoushka Shankar and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.
 
On the personal front, Ravi Shankar married Allauddin Khan's daughter Annapurna Devi in 1941. They had a son, Shubhendra Shankar, who played the sitar and surbahar and often accompanied his father on tours. Shubhendra decided not to pursue a solo career and died in 1992.
 
Ravi Shankar separated from Annapurna Devi during the 1940s. He had a relationship with Sue Jones, a New York concert producer, and their daughter Norah Jones is a well-known singer.
 
Anoushka Shankar is the daughter of Ravi Shankar and Sukanya Rajan, whom he knew since the 1970s and married in 1989. The couple lived in Encinitas, California.
 
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