Tuesday, August 13, 2013
USTAD VILAYAT KHAN (August
28, 1928 – March 13, 2004) was one of India's well known sitar maestros. He
recorded his first 78-RPM disc at the age of 8, and gave his last concert in
2004 at the age of 75.
Vilayat Khan performed at All Bengal Music Conference, as his
first concert, organized by Bhupen Ghosh in Kolkata with Ahmed Jan
Thirakwa on tabla. His performance made headlines as "Electrifying
Sitar" in Bombay next day of his concert organized by Vikramaditya Sangeet
Parishad, Mumbai (1944). In the 1950s, Vilayat Khan worked closely with
instrument makers, especially the famous sitar-makers Kanailal & Hiren Roy,
to further develop the instrument. Also, he liked to perform without a tanpura drone,
filling out the silence with strokes to his chikari strings.
Some ragas he would somewhat re-interpret (Bhankar,
Jaijaivanti), others he invented himself (Enayatkhani Kanada, Sanjh Saravali,
Kalavanti, Mand Bhairav), but he was first and foremost a traditional
interpreter of grand, basic ragas such as Yaman, Shree, Todi, Darbari and
Bhairavi.
When he died from lung cancer in 2004, Vilayat Khan had been
recording for over 65 years, broadcasting on All-India Radio since
almost as far back and been seen as a master (ustad) for 60. He had been
touring outside India off and on for more than 50 years, and was probably the
first Indian musician to play in England after independence (1951).
In the 1990s, his recording career reached a climax of sorts with a series of
ambitious CDs for India Archive Music in New York, some traditional, some
controversial, some eccentric. Towards the end of his life, he also performed
and recorded sporadically on the surbahar. He has performed duet concerts with
maestros like Bismillah Khan, Ali Akbar Khan, brother Imrat Khan.
Khan composed and conducted the score for three feature films -
Satyajit Ray's Jalsaghar in Bengali, Merchant-Ivory
Productions' The Guru in English, and Madhusudan Kumar's Kadambari in
Hindi. In addition to these, he also gave music for a little known documentary
film in Bengali produced by Dr. Barin Roy. For Jalsaghar he
won a Silver Medal for Composing at the 1st Moscow International Film
Festival.
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