Grammy-winning Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar dies at 92

PanARMENIAN.Net - Ravi Shankar, the Grammy Award-winning Indian sitar virtuoso who became the world’s leading representative of South Asian music, exerted a major influence on popular music in the 1960s and was the father of the jazz-pop musician Norah Jones, died Tuesday. He was 92, The Guardian reported.

Stuart Wolferman, a spokesman for Mr. Shankar, said he died at a hospital near his home in Encinitas, Calif. The cause of death was not immediately available.

Mr. Shankar, who began his performing career as a young dancer, toured extensively as a musician after learning sitar from one of India’s great musicians. The skill with which he played the traditional Indian stringed instrument inspired several pop and rock bands in the 1960s to incorporate the sitar, most notably the Beatles with its songs “Norwegian Wood” and “Within You, Without You.”

In 1971, Shankar and Beatles guitarist George Harrison organized and played at a fundraising concert to aid the war and famine victims of Bangladesh, giving birth to the modern megastar benefit concert.

Besides Harrison, who was his best-known disciple, Mr. Shankar’s musical collaborators over the years included jazz saxophonist John Coltrane, composer Philip Glass, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal. He composed music for film, radio and stage, including the score for Richard Attenborough’s movie “Gandhi” (1982) and director Satyajit Ray’s acclaimed “Apu Trilogy” in the 1950s.