Ali Akbar Khan
Ustad Ali Akbar Khan (14 April 1922 – 18 June 2009) was an Indian Hindustani classical musician of the Maihar gharana and one of the foremost exponents of the sarod. Renowned for his virtuosity, melodic invention, and the emotional depth and intensity of his playing, Khan was among the most celebrated Indian classical musicians of the twentieth century. Trained from childhood by his father, Ustad Allauddin Khan, he and his younger sister, the celebrated surbahar maestro Annapurna Devi, became leading inheritors of their father's musical tradition. Violinist Yehudi Menuhin described Ali Akbar Khan as "an absolute genius" and "the greatest musician in the world".
Khan's playing combined formidable technique with an austere, deeply expressive style. Rather than relying on outward display, he was noted for drawing extraordinary intensity, emotional depth, and tonal color from individual notes and simple melodic passages. His improvisations were distinguished by their melodic inventiveness and by an exceptional command of the expressive possibilities of the sarod.
Khan was also a composer of several new ragas. Among the best known are Raga Chandranandan ("moonstruck"), which he created by drawing on four evening ragas (Malkauns, Chandrakauns, Nandakauns, and Kaushi Kanada) and Gauri Manjari. Khan also composed film scores, including for Satyajit Ray's Devi (1960) and the early Merchant–Ivory film The Householder (1963).
Khan was a pioneer in popularizing Indian classical music in the West. On his first visit to the United States in 1955, at Menuhin's invitation, he recorded Music of India: Morning and Evening Ragas on 18 April at a Museum of Modern Art guest house in New York and performed at the museum the following day. The resulting Angel Records release is generally described as the first album of Indian classical music issued in the West.
Khan was also an influential teacher of Indian classical music. He founded the first Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta in 1956. Khan later settled in California and was an adjunct professor of music at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 1967, he established an American college in Berkeley, California, which subsequently moved to San Rafael. In 1985 he founded a third branch in Basel, Switzerland. The college in San Rafael remains active as a center for the teaching and preservation of North Indian classical music.
Khan was accorded India's second highest civilian honour, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1989. Nominated five times for the Grammy Award, he was also a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship.
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