Ravi Shankar
By the 1950s, Ravi Shankar began writing the scores for Indian films and became music director for the country’s national radio broadcast, All India Radio. His notoriety as a virtuoso sitar musician earned him many accolades both at home and abroad, where he was in great demand as a touring artist in Europe and, later, the United States. His recordings of Hindustani classical raga made during the early 1960s are considered among his finest studio works. Furthermore, he was strongly influential on jazz music icon John Coltrane (1926–1967), who named his son Ravi (b. 1965), after the Indian music emissary. By the time of Shankar’s appearance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, he was already a revered figure among world-music enthusiasts throughout the West.
Shankar continued to pursue his interests in cross-cultural collaboration, composing Western-style orchestral works that include traditional Indian instruments; in 1983 he was nominated for an Academy Award for his contributions to the score of the film Gandhi (1982). He has made numerous recordings of Hindustani classical music and continues to perform live, often with his daughter Anoushka. He has received many awards for his invaluable contributions to music and culture throughout the world and is generally recognized as one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century.