Ali Akbar Khan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | (1922-04-14)14 April 1922 Shibpur,Bengal Presidency, British India |
| Origin | Maihar |
| Died | 18 June 2009(2009-06-18) (aged 87) San Anselmo, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Hindustani classical music |
| Occupation(s) | Composer,Sarodiya |
| Instrument | Sarod |
Ali Akbar Khan (14 April 1922 – 18 June 2009) was an IndianHindustani classical musician of theMaihar gharana, known for his virtuosity in playing thesarod. Trained as a classical musician and instrumentalist by his father,Allauddin Khan, he also composed numerous classicalragas andfilm scores.[1] He established a music school inCalcutta in 1956, and theAli Akbar College of Music in 1967, which moved with him to the United States and is now based inSan Rafael,[2] California, with a branch inBasel, Switzerland.
Khan was instrumental in popularizingIndian classical music in the West, both as a performer and as a teacher. He first came to America in 1955 on the invitation of violinistYehudi Menuhin and later settled in California.[3] He was an adjunct professor of music at the University of California, Santa Cruz.[4]
Khan was accorded India's second highest civilian honour, thePadma Vibhushan, in 1989.[5] Nominated five times for theGrammy Award, Khan was also a recipient of theMacArthur Fellowship and theNational Endowment for the Arts'National Heritage Fellowship.
Ali Akbar Khan was born in the village of Shibpur,Brahmanbaria, in present-day Bangladesh, to musician and teacher,Allauddin Khan and Madina Begum.[6] Soon after his birth, Khan's family returned toMaihar (in present-dayMadhya Pradesh, India) where his father was the primary court musician for theMaharaja of theprincely state.[7]
From an early age Khan received training from his father in various instruments as well as vocal composition, but finally gravitated towards the sarod. Allauddin was a perfectionist and a strict taskmaster, and Khan's lessons started before dawn and often lasted 18 hours a day.[8] Khan also learned to play thetabla and thepakhavaj from his uncle,Aftabuddin Khan, who he visited at Shibpur.[9] During this period he met several prominent musicians, such as the sarodistTimir Baran and flautistPannalal Ghosh, who came to study with his father; in later years he was joined in his lessons by his sisterAnnapurna Devi, who became an accomplished player of thesurbahar, and fellow studentRavi Shankar. Shankar and Annapurna Devi were married in 1941.[7]
Of his training on the sarod, he wrote:
If you practice for ten years, you may begin to please yourself, after 20 years you may become a performer and please the audience, after 30 years you may please even your guru, but you must practice for many more years before you finally become a true artist—then you may please even God.[10]
Khan, after years of rigorous training, gave his debut performance at a music conference inAllahabad in 1936, at the age of 13. Three years later, in December 1939, he accompanied Ravi Shankar on the sarod during the latter's debut performance at the same conference; this was the first of manyjugalbandis (duets) between the two musicians. In 1938 Khan gave his first recital onAll India Radio (AIR), Bombay (accompanied on the tabla byAlla Rakha), and starting in January 1940, he gave monthly performances on AIR,Lucknow. Finally in 1944, both Shankar and Khan left Maihar to start their professional careers as musicians; Shankar went toBombay, while Khan became the youngest music director for AIR, Lucknow, and was responsible for solo performances and composing for the radio orchestra.[8]
In 1943, on his father's recommendation, Khan was appointed a court musician for theMaharaja of Jodhpur,Umaid Singh.[11] There, he taught and composed music besides giving recitals and was accorded the title ofUstad by the Maharaja. When the princely states were wound down with India's independence in 1947 and Maharaja Hanwant Singh died in a plane crash in 1952, Khan moved to Bombay.[8]
In Bombay, he won acclaim as a composer of several film scores, includingChetan Anand'sAandhiyan (1952).Lata Mangeshkar sang the title song, "Har Kahin Pe Shaadmani" and as a token of her respect to sarod maestro, did not charge any fee.[12] This was followed bySatyajit Ray'sDevi (1960),Merchant-Ivory'sThe Householder, andTapan Sinha'sKhudito Pashan ("Hungry Stones", 1960), for which he won the "Best Musician of the Year" award. He also played sarod for a song in 1955 filmSeema which had the music composed by Shankar Jaikishan. Later in 1993, he would score some of the music forBernardo Bertolucci'sLittle Buddha.[13]
Beginning in 1945, Khan also started recording a series of78 rpm disks (which could record about three minutes of music) at theHis Master's Voice studios in Bombay. For one such record he conceived a new compositionRaga Chandranandan ("moonstruck"), based on four evening ragas,Malkauns,Chandrakauns, Nandakauns and Kaushi Kanada. This record was a huge success in India, and the raga found a worldwide audience, when a 22-minute rendition was re-recorded for theMaster Musician of IndiaLP in 1965 − one of Khan's seminal recordings.[14]
He performed in India and traveled extensively in the West. In 1956, Khan founded theAli Akbar College of Music inCalcutta, with the mission to teach and spread Indian classical music. He founded another school of the same name inBerkeley, California in 1967 and later moved it toSan Rafael, California.[11][better source needed] Khan performed in Boston withShankar Ghosh in 1969 for thePeabody Mason Concert series. In 1985 he founded another branch of the Ali Akbar College of Music inBasel, Switzerland. Khan was the first Indian musician to record anLP album of Indian classical music in the United States and to play sarod on American television.[15]
Khan has participated in a number of classicjugalbandi pairings, most notably withRavi Shankar,Nikhil Banerjee and violinistL. Subramaniam. A few recordings of duets withVilayat Khan also exist. He also collaborated with Western musicians; he taughtGrateful Dead drummersMickey Hart[16] and, by extension,Bill Kreutzmann. In August 1971, Khan performed atMadison Square Garden for theConcert for Bangladesh, along with Ravi Shankar,Alla Rakha andKamala Chakravarty; other musicians at the concert includedGeorge Harrison,Bob Dylan,Eric Clapton andRingo Starr. A live album and a movie of the event were later released.[1][11]
Khan was married three times and had at least 11 children, including sarod playersAashish Khan,Alam Khan, and Manik Khan.[17][18]
Khan was based in the United States for the last four decades of his life. He toured extensively until he was prevented from doing so by ill health. He had been a dialysis patient since 2004. He died from kidney failure at his home in San Anselmo, California on 18 June 2009, at age 87.[19]
Khan was awarded thePadma Bhushan in 1967[20] and thePadma Vibhushan in 1989,[21] among other awards. He received aMacArthur Fellowship in 1991,[11] the first Indian musician to receive the so-called "genius grant".[19] In 1997, Khan received theNational Endowment for the Arts' prestigiousNational Heritage Fellowship, the United States' highest honour in the traditional arts.[22] Khan received five Grammy nominations over the course of his life.[19] In September 2014, a postage stamp featuring Khan was released byIndia Post commemorating his contributions.[23]
Solo albums:
WithRavi Shankar:
WithJohn Handy:
