Legendary Indian musician Ravi Shankar will be honored with a centennial celebration in honor of the performer’s 100th birthday, with a series of performances across the United States and London. These celebrations will feature performances from his daughters Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar as well as special guest artists Philip Glass, Dhani Harrison (son of George Harrison), and an orchestra of Shankar’s disciples on various South Asian instruments.

Shankar was an extremely influential sitar player, who popularized various sforms of classical South Asian music across the United States. The performer had a major impact on several prominent artists in the UK working with the likes of The Beatles’ George Harrison, and eventually popularizing the use of sitar within rock music throughout the 1960s.

“He was a national treasure and a global ambassador of India’s cultural heritage,”  Mr. Manmohan Singh the former Prime Minister of India explained regarding Shakar’s passing in 2012. “An era has passed away with Pandit Ravi Shankar. The nation joins me to pay tributes to his unsurpassable genius, his art and his humility.”

Shankar’s disciples who will be performing at these events include Vishwa Mohan Bhatt (Mohan veena), Tarun Bhattacharya (santoor), Kartik Seshadri (sitar, only U.S.A.), Partho Sarothy (sarod), Shubhendra Rao (sitar), Gaurav Mazumdar (sitar), Barry Phillips (cello), Sanjeev Shankar (shehnai), Ashwani Shankar (shehnai), Ravichandra Kulur (flute), Bickram Ghosh (tabla), Tanmoy Bose (tabla), Pratik Shrivastava (sarod), Pirashanna Thevarajah (mridangam, ghatam, morsing), B.C. Manjunath (mridangam), Kenji Ota (tanpura), and Nick Able (tanpura).

Anoushka Shankar will be performing at each of these celebrations, while Jones will be performing exclusively at the South Bank Centre on April 7th and the Walt Disney Concert Hall on May 19th. Harrison will be performing at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the San Diego Civic Center on May 16th, while Glass will be exclusively performing at Carnegie Hall on May 29th.

Ravi Shankar Centennial Concert Series

4/7 – South Bank Centre –  London, UK (w/Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar)
5/16 – San Diego Civic Center – San Diego, CA (fundraiser for Shankar Foundation w/ Dhani Harrison and Anoushka Shankar)
5/19 – Walt Disney Concert Hall – Los Angeles, CA (w/ Dhani Harrison, Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar)
5/22 – Chicago Symphony Orchestra – Chicago, IL (w/Anoushka Shankar)
5/29 – Carnegie Hall – New York, NY. (w/ Philip Glass and Anoushka Shankar)

Photo Credit: Sharon Alagna