Ravi Shankar

Arguably the most widely recognized Indian musician in the world, Ravi Shankar was a sitar player and composer who helped to introduce the music of his country through his enormous catalog of recordings, the soundtracks to internationally acclaimed films like Satyajit Ray's "Apu Trilogy" (1955-56, 1959) and through his friendship with Beatle George Harrison. After decades of work in his native land as both a composer and orchestrator for Indian radio, he traveled West to bring sitar music to America and Europe. Extensive touring and recording there introduced him to Harrison, who studied sitar under Shankar in the late 1960s. The Beatles connection allowed Shankar access to some of the biggest cultural events of the decade, including the Monterey International Music Festival and Woodstock Festival, but he preferred composing and lecturing to the spotlight. Shankar would remain in the public eye throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including an Oscar-nominated stint as composer for "Gandhi" (1980), but his role as performer and teacher became his preferred method of disseminating his music to the world. Still active in his ninth decade, his influence was felt on generations of world music performers, as well as through his own children, the pop-jazz singer Norah Jones and sitar player Anoushka Shankar.