SHANKAR, RAVI

born April 7, 1920, Benares [now Varanasi], India Indian musician, player of the sitar, composer, and founder of the National Orchestra of India, influential in stimulating Western appreciation of Indian music. As a member of the dance troupe of his brother Uday, Ravi studied music and dance and toured extensively in India and Europe. At the age of 18 Shankar gave up dancing and for the next seven years studied the sitar (a long-necked stringed instrument of the lute family) under the noted musician Ustad Allauddin Khan. After serving as music director of All-India Radio from 1948 until 1956, he began a series of European and American tours. Shankar composed the film scores for the Indian director Satyajit Ray's famous Apu trilogy (195559). In 1962 he founded the Kinnara School of Music in Bombay and then (1967) in Los Angeles. Shankar's concert performances with the violinist Yehudi Menuhin and his association with George Harrison of the Beatles helped bring Indian music to the attention of the West. In 1969 his autobiography, My Life, My Music, was published.