Ravi Shankar

When Ravi Shankar played the sitar, a room full of people would go completely quiet. The music from his strings felt like a slow sunrise.

He played with Indian musicians, but also travelled the world and made friends with the Beatles' George Harrison and the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin. In 1971 he organised a huge concert to help the people of Bangladesh.

He taught the whole world to fall in love with Indian raga music.

Pandit Ravi Shankar was born in 1920 in Varanasi and trained in the Maihar gharana under the strict, brilliant guru Allauddin Khan. He became one of the greatest Hindustani classical sitarists of the twentieth century, and helped introduce Indian raga music to global audiences from the 1950s onwards.

He collaborated with George Harrison of the Beatles, who became his student, and with violinist Yehudi Menuhin, with whom he recorded the acclaimed 'West Meets East' albums. Together with Harrison he organised the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh in New York, one of the first major benefit concerts in music history.

He composed music for films by Satyajit Ray, including the Apu Trilogy, and for Richard Attenborough's 'Gandhi'. He won five Grammy Awards and was honoured with the Bharat Ratna in 1999.

His daughters Anoushka Shankar and Norah Jones are also renowned musicians.