Khan, Ali Akbar (1922-2009), was an Indian musician and composer who helped popularize north Indian classical music in the West. He is considered the greatest player of the sarod (suh ROHD), a lutelike instrument of India with 25 strings. Khan often performed in concert with his brother-in-law, the famous Indian sitar musician Ravi Shankar . A sitar is an Indian string instrument with a long neck. Khan is often referred to in India as Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. Ustad is a title that means respected teacher.
Khan was born on April 14, 1922, in Shibpur, a small village in what is now Bangladesh . He was the son of Ustad Allauddin Khan, a well-known and highly respected teacher of Indian classical music. Ali Akbar grew up in Maihar, Madhya Pradesh , where his father was the principal musician in the court of the maharajah (ruler). Ali Akbar began vocal training when he was 3 years old. He studied a number of Indian instruments before focusing on the sarod. From 1943 to 1948, he served as a court musician for the maharajah of Jodhpur.
In 1945, Khan’s recording of the raga “Chandranandan,” which he created, became a hit among classical music fans in India. A raga is an arrangement of a certain pattern of the notes of the Indian scale. In 1955, Khan performed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. A recording of the performance, titled Music of India: Morning and Evening Ragas, is generally considered to be the first long-playing record of Indian classical music to be sold in the United States. In 1956, Khan founded the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta (now Kolkata ). In 1967, he established the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California, with a branch in Basel, Switzerland.
Khan composed scores for the Indian motion pictures Aandhiyan (1952); Devi (1960), by the famous Indian director Satyajit Ray ; and Hungry Stones (1960). He wrote music for a number of other films as well. They include The Householder (1963) and Little Buddha (1993). Khan’s sons Aashish Khan and Alam Khan are also noted sarod players. Ali Akbar Khan died on June 18, 2009.
