Special screening:Remembering the Maestro.

Remembering the Maestro.
Sarod maestro Ustad Ali Akhbar Khan passed away on Friday 19th 2009.

NID Film Club would like to pay a tribute the master, every one is requested to be at the AUDI, today, at 6:15 pm.


As per the programme we’ll like to start with listening to a rear recording of Ustad Ali Akhbar Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar rendering DHUN PALAAS KAFI
Followed by a movie Ustad composed music for : Devi, directed by Satyajit Ray.

Something about the Maestro.
Ustad Ali Akhbar Khan was born on April 14, 1922 in Shibpur village of comilla district , now in Bangladesh, Khan took up music at the age of 3, learning vocal music from his father Ustad Alauddin Khan and percussion from his uncle, Fakir Aftabuddin.
Khan gave his first performance in Allahabad at the age of 13 and made his first gramophone recording in Lacknow when he was in his 20s. He became the court musician of the Maharaja of Jodhpur and continued for seven years until his patrons passed away. The state of Jodhpur bestowed upon him the title of ‘Ustad’.
At the request of Menuhin, Khan visited U.S. in 1955 and performed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.He was the first to cut a long play record of Indian classical music in US. and to give a sarod recital on American TV.
A recipient of Padma Bhushan and Padma Vibhushan, he was a colossus in the world of the Indian classical music for the last five decades. He was admired by both eastern as well as western musicians for his brilliant composition and his mastery of the 25-string instrument .
He founded the Ali Akhbar College of Music in Kolkata in 1956. In 1956 he began teaching in the U.S. and opened a branch of his college there and in Switzerland. In 1997, the maestro performed at the United Nations to celebrate the 50th year of India’s Independence.

The Ustad also composed music for films. He scored music for Chetan Anand’s Aandhian(1953), Ivory-Merchant production House Holder, Tapan Sinha’s Khudita Pashan, Stayajit Ray’s Devi and U.S. director Bernardo Bertolucci’s Little Buddha.