Farewell Ravi Shankar, 'godfather' of world music
Mumbai (AsiaNews) - The world salutes Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitar maestro and composer, who died overnight in California from complications following heart surgery. He was 92.
A virtuoso of the sitar (which is similar to the guitar), Shankar was a living icon in India for bringing classical Indian music to an international audience.
The breakthrough came when he met George Harrison, the Beatles' guitarist, who gave him the nickname of 'godfather' of world music.
When Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh confirmed the death, he called Shankar a "national treasure".
Born in Varanasi in 1920 from a Brahmin family, Ravi Shankar was the youngest of four brothers.
He spent his first 10 years in relative poverty and was almost eight before he met his father, a lawyer, philosopher, writer and former minister to the Maharajah of Jhalawar.
He started his career as dancer in his brother Uday Shankar's group, which he left in 1938 to study the sitar under Allaudin Khan.
When he toured Europe and America with his brother in the 1930s, Shankar discovered Western music, jazz and the movies, which would eventually influence his ragas (Indian melodic modes) and make him the maestro he became.
After his solo concerts in the Soviet Union (1954), Europe and United States (1956) and Japan (1958), he became India's ambassador to the world.
His meeting with George Harrison and the hippie movement led to his participation in Woodstock festival of 1969.
In his long career, he wrote important soundtracks for movies, including the one for Gandhi, and released more than 50 albums, many in cooperation with the great Indian and international musicians of the time, including world famous violinist Yehudi Menuhin, whose family came from Russia.
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19/06/2018 17:54
