Ravi Shankar

Born into a Bengali Brahmin family, Shankar spent most of his youth studying music and dance and touring extensively in India and Europe with his elder brother Uday Shankar's dance troupe. At age 18 Shankar gave up dancing, and for the next seven years he studied the sitar under a noted musician gharana. After completing his training as a sitar artist in the mid-1940s, Shankar joined the Indian People's Theatre Association, a left-wing theatrical organization that promoted ideals of social and economic equality. He composed music for the group's productions and recomposed the popular patriotic song "Saare Jahan Se Accha"; his version remains the one most commonly performed and is frequently used by the Indian Army as a marching song. Shankar served as music director of All India Radio (AIR) from 1948 until 1956, during which time he founded the Indian stint at AIR and began a series of European and American tours. Shankar composed 31 ragas, including Bairagi, Rasiya, and Banjara. He composed film scores for Neecha Nagar (1946), the acclaimed Apu trilogy (1955–59) by Satyajit Ray, and Gandhi directed by Richard Attenborough. In 1962 he founded the Kinnara School of Music in Bombay and established a second Kinnara School in Los Angeles in 1967.