Pandit Bhimsen Gururaj Joshi (Marathi: पंडित भीमसेन गुरुराज जोशी, Kannada: born February 4, 1922) is an Indian vocalist in the Hindustani classical tradition. A member of the Kirana Gharana (school), he is renowned for the khayal form of singing, as well as for his popular renditions of devotional music (bhajans and abhangs). He is the most recent recipient of the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian honour, awarded in 2008
Early life
He was born into a Kannada Brahmin family in the town of Gadag in northern part of Karnataka state. His father, Gururaj Joshi, was a school teacher. Bhimsen is the eldest in a family of 16 siblings. Some of the siblings still live in their ancestral home in Gadag. Bhimsen lost his mother when he was young, and his step mother raised him.
Musical Training
Until the first half of the 20th century, Khyal was principally taught in the Guru Shishya (master-disciple) tradition. Bhimsen's guru Sawai Gandharva was the chief disciple of Abdul Karim Khan, who along with his cousin Abdul Waheed Khan was the founder of the Kirana Gharana school of Hindustani music. Search for a Guru
Pt. Joshi heard a recording of Utd. Abdul Karim Khan's Thumri "Piya Bin Nahi Aavat Chain" in Raag Jhinjhoti when he was a child, which inspired him to become a musician. In 1933, the 11-year-old Pt. Joshi left Dharwad for Bijapur[disambiguation needed] to find a master and learn music.[3] With the help of money lent by his co-passengers in the train Bhimsen reached Dharwar first and later went to Pune. Later he moved to Gwalior and got into Madhava Music School, a school run by Maharajas of Gwalior, with the help of famous Sarod player Utd. Hafiz Ali Khan. He traveled for three years around North India, including in Delhi, Kolkata, Gwalior, Lucknow and Rampur, trying to find a good guru.[5] Eventually, his father succeeded in tracking him down in Jalandar and brought young Bhimsen back home. Bhimsen Joshi is also popularliy known as Anna (elder Brother) or Bhim-Anna.
Pt. Sawai Gandharva
In 1936, Pt. Rambhau Kundgolkar (alias Sawai Gandharva), a native of Dharwad, agreed to be his guru. Bhimsen Joshi stayed at his house in the traditional guru-shishya (teacher-student) tradition, gleaning knowledge of music from his master as and when he could, while performing odd-jobs in his house. Another renowned vocalist from the Kirana Gharana, Gangubai Hangal, was a co-student of Bhimsen during this time. Joshi continued his training with Sawai Gandharva till 1940.
Career
Pt. Joshi moved to Mumbai in 1943 and worked as a Radio Artist. He first performed live at the age 19. His debut album, containing a few devotional songs in Kannada and Hindi, was released by HMV when he was 22.
Hindustani Classical Music
Bhimsen's music has been hailed by both the critics and the masses. His performances have been marked by spontaneity, accurate notes, dizzyingly-paced taans which make use of his exceptional voice training, and a mastery over rhythm. He was ever the wanderer, engendering brilliant phrases and taans more intuitively than through deliberation. Never the one to be controlled by the rigours of theory, he sailed high, sometimes floundering, nevertheless reaching out to the stars. He makes occasional use of sargam and tihaais, and favours traditional compositions of the Kirana gharana. Over the years he has specialized in a few ragas, which he usually performs. Some of Pt. Joshi's more popular Raags include Shuddha Kalyan, Miyan Ki Todi, Puriya Dhanashri, Multani, Bhimpalas, Darbari, and Ramkali. Other than Utd. Abdul Karim Khan, Pt. Joshi has been influenced by many musicians, including Smt. Kesarbai Kerkar, Begum Akhtar and Utd. Amir Khan. Pt. Joshi's own style emerged over the years after assimilating various elements from what he liked in different musical styles and Gharanas.
Devotional Music
In devotional music, Pt. Joshi is most acclaimed for his Kannada, Hindi and Marathi Bhajan singing. His commercially successful CDs Daaswani and Enna Paliso included Kannada Bhajans, and Santawani included Marathi Abhangs.
Patriotic Music
Pt. Joshi is revered in India for his work in the Mile Sur Mera Tumhara music video (1985), which begins with him. Pt. Joshi was also invited to sing for the Bharat Bala production of the Indian National Anthem music video (2000).
Playback Singing
Joshi has sung for several films, including Basant Bahar (1956) with Manna Dey, Birbal My Brother (1973) with Pt. Jasraj and Nodi Swami Naavu Irodhu Heege. He also sung for films Tansen(1958)[citation needed] and Ankahee(1985).
Sawai Gandharva Music Festival
Pt. Joshi organized the Sawai Gandharva Music Festival as an homage to his guru, Pt. Sawai Gandharva, along with the Arya Sangeet Prasarak Mandal in 1953, marking Pt. Gandharva's first death anniversary. The festival has been held ever since, typically on the second weekend of December in Pune, Maharashtra and has become not only a cultural event for the city, but an annual pilgrimage for Hindustani Classical Music lovers all over the world. Pt. Joshi conducted the festival annually since 1953, until his retirement in 2002.
Students
Pt. Joshi has taught many students, several of whom have gone onto commercial success.
* Pt. Madhav Gudi * Shrikant Deshpande * Pt. Vinayak Torvi * Upendra Bhat * Shrinivas Joshi, Pt. Joshi's son. * Pt. Rajendra Kandalgaonkar * Anand Bhate
Personal life
Pt. Joshi's family arranged his marriage at his early age to a girl named Sunanda Katti; she was his cousin. They had four children together; two sons and daughters.Later, Pt. Joshi married Vatsala Mudholkar with whom he had two sons, Jayant and Shrinivas, and one daughter, Shubhada. Sunanda died in 1992 and Vatsala passed away in 2005. Elder son Jayant is a painter and younger son, Shrinivas is a vocalist and composer and has issued a few commercial recordings. Pt. Bhimsen Joshi has been a very private and down to earth person. He likes to lead a very quiet and simple life.
Awards and Recognitions
* 1972 - Padma Shree * 1976 - Sangeet Natak Akademi Award * 1985 - Padma Bhushan * 1985 - National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer * 1986 - "First platinum disc" [8] * 1999 - Padma Vibhushan * 2000 - "Aditya Vikram Birla Kalashikhar Puraskar" [9] * 2001 - "Nadoja Award" from Kannada University [10] * 2002 - Maharashtra Bhushan [11] * 2003 - "Swathi Sangeetha Puraskaram" by Government of Kerala[12] * 2005 - Karnataka Ratna * 2008 - Bharat Ratna * 2008 - "Swami Haridas Award" [13] * 2009 - "Lifetime achievement award" by Delhi government[14] * 2010 - "S V Narayanaswamy Rao National Award" by Rama Seva Mandali, Bangalore
Ravi Shankar (Bengali: রবি শংকর; born 7 April 1920), often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.[1] Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent his youth touring Europe and India with the dance group of his brother Uday Shankar. He gave up dancing in 1938 to study sitar playing under court musician Allauddin Khan. After finishing his studies in 1944, Shankar worked as a composer, creating the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, and was music director of All India Radio, New Delhi, from 1949 to 1956. In 1956, he began to tour Europe and America playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and George Harrison of The Beatles. Shankar engaged Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1986 to 1992 he served as a nominated member of the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. Shankar was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999, and received three Grammy Awards. He continues to perform in the 2000s, often with his daughter Anoushka.
Early life
Shankar was born 7 April 1920 in Varanasi to a wealthy and conservative Brahmin family of cultured Bengalis as the youngest of seven brothers. Shankar's Bengali birth name was Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury. His father, Shyam Shankar, an administrator for the Maharaja of Jhalawar, used the Sanskrit spelling of the family name and removed its last part. Shyam was married to Shankar's mother Hemangini Devi, but later worked as a lawyer in London. There he married a second time while Devi raised Shankar in Varanasi, and did not meet his son until he was eight years old. Shankar shortened the Sanskrit version of his first name, Ravindra, to Ravi, for "sun". At the age of ten, after spending his first decade in Varanasi, Shankar went to Paris with the dance group of his brother, choreographer Uday Shankar. By the age of 13 he had become a member of the group, accompanied its members on tour and learned to dance and play various Indian instruments.[ Uday's dance group toured Europe and America in the early to mid-1930s and Shankar learned French, discovered Western classical music, jazz, and cinema, and became acquainted with Western customs. Shankar heard the lead musician for the Maihar court, Allauddin Khan, in December 1934 at a music conference in Kolkata and Uday convinced the Maharaja of Maihar in 1935 to allow Khan to become his group's soloist for a tour of Europe. Shankar was sporadically trained by Khan on tour, and Khan offered Shankar training to become a serious musician under the condition that he abandon touring and came to Maihar
Training and work in India Shankar's parents had died by the time he returned from the European tour, and touring the West had become difficult due to political conflicts that would lead to World War II. Shankar gave up his dancing career in 1938 to go to Maihar and study Indian classical music as Khan's pupil, living with his family in the traditional gurukul system. Khan was a rigorous teacher and Shankar had training on sitar and surbahar, learned ragas and the musical styles dhrupad, dhamar, and khyal, and was taught the techniques of the instruments rudra veena, rubab, and sursingar. He often studied with Khan's children Ali Akbar Khan and Annapurna Devi.Shankar began to perform publicly on sitar in December 1939 and his debut performance was a jugalbandi (duet) with Ali Akbar Khan, who played the string instrument sarod. Shankar completed his training in 1944. Following his training, he moved to Mumbai and joined the Indian People's Theatre Association, for whom he composed music for ballets in 1945 and 1946. Shankar recomposed the music for the popular song "Sare Jahan Se Achcha" at the age of 25. He began to record music for HMV India and worked as a music director for All India Radio (AIR), New Delhi, from February 1949 to January 1956. Shankar founded the Indian National Orchestra at AIR and composed for it; his compositions experimented with a combination of Western instruments and classical Indian instrumentation. Beginning in the mid-1950s he composed the music for the Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray, which became internationally acclaimed.
International career 1956–1969
Tabla player Alla Rakha, who was a frequent accompanist of Shankar, in 1988 V. K. Narayana Menon, director of AIR Delhi, introduced the Western violinist Yehudi Menuhin to Shankar during Menuhin's first visit to India in 1952. Shankar had performed as part of a cultural delegation in the Soviet Union in 1954 and Menuhin invited Shankar in 1955 to perform in New York City for a demonstration of Indian classical music, sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Shankar declined to attend due to problems in his marriage, but recommended Ali Akbar Khan to play instead. Khan reluctantly accepted and performed with tabla (percussion) player Chatur Lal in the Museum of Modern Art, and he later became the first Indian classical musician to perform on American television and record a full raga performance, for Angel Records. Shankar heard about the positive response Khan received and resigned from AIR in 1956 to tour the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States.[21] He played for smaller audiences and educated them about Indian music, incorporating ragas from the South Indian Carnatic music in his performances, and recorded his first LP album Three Ragas in London, released in 1956. In 1958, Shankar participated in the celebrations of the tenth anniversary of the United Nations and UNESCO music festival in Paris. Since 1961, he toured Europe, the United States, and Australia, and became the first Indian to compose music for non-Indian films. Chatur Lal accompanied Shankar on tabla until 1962, when Alla Rakha assumed the role. Shankar founded the Kinnara School of Music in Mumbai in 1962. Shankar befriended Richard Bock, founder of World Pacific Records, on his first American tour and recorded most of his albums in the 1950s and 1960s for Bock's label. The Byrds recorded at the same studio and heard Shankar's music, which led them to incorporate some of its elements in theirs, introducing the genre to their friend George Harrison of The Beatles. Harrison became interested in Indian classical music, bought a sitar and used it to record the song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)". This led to Indian music being used by other musicians and created the raga rock trend. Harrison met Shankar in London in 1966 and visited India for six weeks to study sitar under Shankar in Srinagar. During the visit, a documentary film about Shankar named Raga was shot by Howard Worth, and released in 1971. Shankar's association with Harrison greatly increased Shankar's popularity and Ken Hunt of Allmusic would state that Shankar had become "the most famous Indian musician on the planet" by 1966. In 1967, he performed at the Monterey Pop Festival and won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for West Meets East, a collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin. The same year, the Beatles won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which included "Within You Without You" by Harrison, a song that was influenced by Indian classical music. Shankar opened a Western branch of the Kinnara School of Music in Los Angeles, California, in May 1967, and published an autobiography, My Music, My Life, in 1968. He performed at the Woodstock Festival in August 1969, and found he disliked the venue. In the 1970s Shankar distanced himself from the hippie movement.
International career 1970–present
George Harrison, U.S. President Gerald Ford, and Ravi Shankar in the Oval Office in December 1974 In October 1970 Shankar became chair of the department of Indian music of the California Institute of the Arts after previously teaching at the City College of New York, the University of California, Los Angeles, and being guest lecturer at other colleges and universities, including the Ali Akbar College of Music. In late 1970, the London Symphony Orchestra invited Shankar to compose a concerto with sitar; Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra was performed with André Previn as conductor and Shankar playing the sitar. Hans Neuhoff of Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart has criticized the usage of the orchestra in this concert as "amateurish". George Harrison organized the charity Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971, in which Shankar participated. Interest in Indian music had decreased in the early 1970s, but the concert album became one of the best-selling recordings featuring it and won Shankar a second Grammy Award. During the 1970s, Shankar and Harrison worked together again, recording Shankar Family and Friends in 1974 and touring North America to a mixed response after Shankar had toured Europe.[33] The demanding North America tour weakened Shankar, and he suffered a heart attack in Chicago in September 1974, causing him to cancel a portion of the tour. In his absence, Shankar's sister-in-law, singer Lakshmi Shankar, conducted the touring orchestra.[34] The touring band visited the White House on invitation of John Gardner Ford, son of U.S. President Gerald Ford.[34] Shankar toured and taught for the remainder of the 1970s and the 1980s and released his second concerto, Raga Mala, conducted by Zubin Mehta, in 1981. Shankar was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score for his work on the 1982 movie Gandhi, but lost to John Williams' E.T. He served as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Parliament of India, from 12 May 1986 to 11 May 1992, after being nominated by Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Shankar composed the dance drama Ghanashyam in 1989. His liberal views on musical cooperation led him to collaboration with contemporary composer Philip Glass, with whom he released an album, Passages, in 1990. Shankar underwent an angioplasty in 1992 due to heart problems, after which George Harrison involved himself in several of Shankar's projects. Because of the positive response to Shankar's 1996 career compilation In Celebration, Shankar wrote a second autobiography, Raga Mala, with Harrison as editor. He performed in between 25 and 40 concerts every year during the late 1990s. Shankar taught his daughter Anoushka Shankar to play sitar and in 1997 became a Regent's Lecturer at University of California, San Diego. In the 2000s, he won a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album for Full Circle: Carnegie Hall 2000 and toured with Anoushka, who released a book about her father, Bapi: Love of My Life, in 2002. Anoushka performed a composition by Shankar for the 2002 Harrison memorial Concert for George and Shankar wrote a third concerto for sitar and orchestra for Anoushka and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Shankar played his last European concert in June 2008.
Style and contributions
Shankar plays the raga Madhuvanti at the Shiraz Arts Festival in Iran in the 1970s Shankar developed a style distinct from that of his contemporaries and incorporated influences from rhythm practices of Carnatic music. His performances begin with solo alap, jor, and jhala (introduction and performances with pulse and rapid pulse) influenced by the slow and serious dhrupad genre, followed by a section with tabla accompaniment featuring compositions associated with the prevalent khyal style.[6] Shankar often closes his performances with a piece inspired by the light-classical thumri genre. Shankar has been considered one of the top sitar players of the second half of the 20th century. He popularized performing on the bass octave of the sitar for the alap section and became known for a distinctive playing style in the middle and high registers that uses quick and short deviations of the playing string and his sound creation through stops and strikes on the main playing string. Narayana Menon of The New Grove Dictionary noted Shankar's liking for rhythmic novelties, among them the use of unconventional rhythmic cycles. Hans Neuhoff of Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart has argued that Shankar's playing style was not widely adopted and that he was surpassed by other sitar players in the performance of melodic passages.Shankar's interplay with Alla Rakha improved appreciation for tabla playing in Hindustani classical music. Shankar promoted the jugalbandi duet concert style and introduced new ragas, including Tilak Shyam, Nat Bhairav and Bairagi. [edit]Recognition Shankar won the Silver Bear Extraordinary Prize of the Jury at the 1957 Berlin International Film Festival for composing the music for the movie Kabuliwala.[45] He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for 1962, and was named a Fellow of the academy for 1975. Shankar was awarded the three highest national civil honors of India: Padma Bhushan, in 1967, Padma Vibhushan, in 1981, and Bharat Ratna, in 1999. He received the music award of the UNESCO International Music Council in 1975, three Grammy Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award. Shankar was awarded honorary degrees from universities in India and the United States. 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. Shankar is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1997 received the Praemium Imperiale for music from the Japan Art Association. The American jazz saxophonist John Coltrane named his son Ravi Coltrane after Shankar.
Personal life and family
Shankar married Allauddin Khan's daughter Annapurna Devi in 1941 and a son, Shubhendra Shankar, was born in 1942. Shankar separated from Annapurna in the 1940s and had a relationship with Kamala Shastri, a dancer, beginning in the late 1940s. An affair with Sue Jones, a New York concert producer, led to the birth of Norah Jones in 1979. In 1981, Anoushka Shankar was born to Shankar and Sukanya Rajan, whom Shankar had known since the 1970s. After separating from Kamala Shastri in 1981 Shankar lived with Sue Jones until 1986 and married Sukanya Rajan in 1989. Shubhendra "Shubho" Shankar often accompanied his father on tours. He could play the sitar and surbahar, but elected not to pursue a solo career and died in 1992. Norah Jones became a successful musician in the 2000s, winning eight Grammy Awards in 2003. Anoushka Shankar was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album in 2003. Shankar is a Hindu and a vegetarian. He lives with Sukanya in Southern California.
