Renowned Indian sitarist and Bharat Ratna Recipient Pandit Ravi Shankar passed away in San Diego city of California on 11 December 2012. He was 92 years old. The musician was admitted to the Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla on 6 December 2012 after he complained of breathing difficulties.
Pandit Ravi Shankar is survived by his wife Sukanya and musician daughters, sitar player Anoushka Shankar, singer Norah Jones, 3 grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren.
Pandit Ravi Shankar was suffering from upper-respiratory and heart issues over the past year and underwent heart-valve replacement surgery on 6 December 2012. Though the surgery was successful, recovery proved too difficult for him.
Pandit Ravi Shankar was the sitar exemplar and was also called India`s musical ambassador who was responsible for making Indian classical music popular in the West. He had collaborated with several international artists including George Harrison of The Beatles which had earned him fame and adoration all over the world.
In his 60 years as a musician Pandit Ravi Shankar had won numerous national and international awards.
Awards and Honours won by Pandit Ravi Shankar
• He received the Padma Bhushan in 1967, Padma Vibhushan in 1981 and Bharat Ratna in 1999.
• He is also a three-time Grammy winner.
• He is a honourary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and is a member of the United Nations International Rostrum of composers.
• He is winner of Magsaysay award in year 1992.
•He received the music award of the UNESCO International Music Council in 1975.
•Pandit Ravi Shankar had won the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize of the Jury at the 1957 Berlin International Film Festival for composing the music for the movie Kabuliwala.
•He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 1962
• He received the Kalidas Samman from the Government of Madhya Pradesh for 1987–88, the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize in 1991, the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1992, and the Polar Music Prize in 1998.
A three-time Grammy award winner Pandit Ravi Shankar last performed in California on 4 November 2012 along with his Daughter Anoushka Shankar. Pandit Shankar has also been nominated for the 2013 Grammys for his album The Living Room Sessions Part—1 and was pitted against Anoushka in the same category.
Pandit Ravi Shankar wrote a autobiography, Raga Mala, with Harrison as editor in year 1997. The autobiography was named Raga Mala: The Autobiography of Ravi Shankar.
A Brief Insight into Pandit Ravi Shankar Career
•Born in 1920 in Varanasi to a well-off Brahmin family, Shankar left a possible career as a dancer behind to study sitar.
•Ravi Shankar was trained under Baba Allauddin Khan of the Senia Maihar gharana.
• Pandit Ravi Shankar had authored violin-sitar compositions for Yehudi Menuhin and himself, music for flute virtuoso Jean Pierre Rampal, music for Hosan Yamamoto, master of the Shakuhachi and Musumi Miyashita - Koto virtuoso, and has collaborated with Phillip Glass (Passages).
• Shankar also composed for ballets and films in India, Canada, Europe and the United States. The latter of which includes the films Charly,Gandhi, and the Apu Trilogy.
• He was also nominated as a member of the Rajya Sabha in year 1986.
• Between the early 1950s and the mid-1960s he became the leading international emissary for Indian music, first performing as a solo artist in the USSR in 1954, in Europe and North America in 1956, and Japan in 1958.
• He developed a characteristic sitar sound, with powerful bass notes and a serene and spiritual touch in the alap movement of a raga.
• He was the man responsible for incorporating many aspects of Carnatic (south Indian) music into the north Indian system, especially its mathematical approach to rhythm. He also gave a new prominence to the tabla player in concert.
• He was appointed Director of Music at the Indian People's Theatre Association, and later held the same position at All India Radio (1949–56).
• He composed his first new raga in 1945 (30 more would follow) and began a prolific recording career.
• In 2001, Shankar was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Elizabeth II for his services to music.
•Pandit Ravi Shankar is the brother of dance exponent Uday Shankar and had also scored music for Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali and other Bengali and Hindi movies.
• In 2010, Shankar received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Pandit Ravi Shankar is to receive a posthumous lifetime achievement Grammy award to be presented at 55th Grammy Awards ceremony on 10 February 2013 in Los Angeles becoming the first Indian to receive the prestigious award.
His daughter Anoushka Shankar was also nominated in the same category for her Deutsche Grammophon release, Traveller.
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