Ravi Shankar shortened Ravindra to mean the sun
Born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury in Benares on 7 April 1920, the sitarist toured as a child dancer with brother Uday's troupe before committing to the instrument. From 1956 he carried Hindustani classical music through Europe and America, teaching and collaborating until his 2012 death.
Pandit Ravi Shankar (1920–2012) was an Indian sitar virtuoso and composer who became the twentieth century's most visible ambassador of Hindustani instrumental music. Youngest of a Bengali Hindu family in the princely capital then called Benares (Varanasi), he spent early years on the road with choreographer Uday Shankar's dance company across India and Europe. Around age eighteen he left dance for rigorous sitar discipleship that shaped a lifelong concert practice.
He shortened Sanskrit Ravindra to Ravi, "sun," and counted five siblings including Uday. Paris years after age ten widened his ear; later decades brought recordings, film scores, and cross-cultural partnerships that placed raga forms on Western festival bills. Teaching and touring from 1956 onward multiplied listeners who had never entered a classical Indian concert hall.
From 1938 he lived with the family of court musician Allauddin Khan in Maihar, training in the traditional gurukul way until 1944. He then composed ballet scores in Mumbai, reset the music of Sare Jahan Se Achcha at 25, and directed music for All India Radio before resigning in 1956 to tour Britain, Germany and the United States, releasing the LP Three Ragas in London that year. Yehudi Menuhin, whom he met in 1952, became a partner; their album West Meets East won a Grammy for chamber music. The Byrds heard him at a shared studio and passed the sound to George Harrison. He played Woodstock in August 1969 but disliked the venue and rejected the link between his music and drugs. Later he sat in India's upper house from 1986 to 1992 and released Passages with Philip Glass in 1990.
Source: Ravi Shankar
