Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c11.s2.t10.2

v2.c11.s2.t10.2

**Lifetime** Ravi Shankar left Varanasi at the age of 10, and followed the dance troupe of his eldest brother Uday Shankar to Paris. Later, he became a member of the dance troupe at the age of 13. On one hand, he participated in the tour show with other members in Europe and India; and on the other hand, he learned to dance and play various Indian musical instruments. In the early and middle periods of 1930s, he started to learn French during his tour show with the dance troupe in Europe and America, thus learning western classical music, jazz and film music as well as western customs. He gave up dancing in 1938, and came to the small city of Maihar (currently in east Madhya Pradesh) with musical customs, and then he was formally apprenticed to the outstanding court musician Allaudin Khan to study Indian classical music and received strict training in the fields of sitar, traditional music theory, musical instrument skills, etc. After completing his apprenticeship in 1944, he came to Bombay and composed for ballet. In 1949, he took the post of music director of Indian National Broadcasting Station. In the middle and later periods of the 1950s, he garnered international fame by writing music for *Apu Trilogy* - *Pather Panchali* (1955), *Aparajito* (1956) and *Apur Sansar* (1959), directed by the famous Satyajit Ray. In 1955, the American violinist Yehudi Menuhin invited Ravi Shankar to play Indian classical music in New York, but he gave up that opportunity due to his marital problems. However, the two musicians cooperated with each other twice respectively in 1966 and 1967, to play the violin and sitar in England and America. In January 1956, he resigned from the illustrious post in Indian National Broadcasting Station, and started to participate in tour shows to England, Germany and America. From 1956 till his death in 2012, Ravi Shankar was a world citizen since he travelled to many countries to give his tour shows. Besides the mainland of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, he was also invited to participate in the tour shows around the four continents of Asia, Europe, America and Australia. The audiences were deeply attracted by his excellent acting skills, strong culture and pure professional ethics. He became popular through his cooperation with George Harrison from the Beatles, who called him the “Godfather of World Music.” He became the most famous and legendary Indian musician. During his whole life, he held more than 1,000 concerts, published many music albums and created many kinds of music works, such as *Sitar Concerto*, and his famous works, *My Music, My Life* (1968), *Learning Indian Music: A Systematic Approach* (1979), *Raga Mala: The Autobiography of Ravi Shankar* (1997) etc were popular all over the world.