Ali Akbar Khan

Born in 1922 in Shibpore, East Bengal, now Bangladesh, as son of the legendary Acharya Baba Allauddin Khan; died at 87 at his home in San Francisco on June 18, 2009, having suffered four years of kidney-related illness. His vocal training began at 3 and, after studying the surbahar, sitar and tabla, focused on the sarod. Ali Akbar Khan was one of today's most accomplished Indian classical musicians. Late American violinist Yehudi Menuhin, who became one of his earliest champions in the West, said he considered Ali Akbar Khan "an absolute genius, the greatest musician in the world." Regarded as a "National Living Treasure" in India, he is admired by both Eastern and Western musicians for his brilliant compositions and his mastery of the sarod (a beautiful, 25-stringed Indian instrument). Khan was the husband of Mary J. Khan (his third wife) and the former husband of Rajdulari Aliakbar Khan (his second wife). He was the father of Aashish Khan, Dhyanesh Khan, and Pranesh Khan, the brother of Annapurna Devi, the uncle of Shubhendra Shankar, the cousin of Bahadur Khan, the brother-in-law of Prof. Rooshikumar Pandya, and the former brother-in-law of Ravi Shankar (due to Shankar's marriage to his first wife, Annapurna Devi).