Ravi Shankar, the legendary sitarist and composer, is India’s most esteemed musical ambassador and a singular phenomenon in the history of classical music, having done more than any previous musician in history to bring Indian classical music to the West and vice-versa.

He is widely known in the West for his collaboration with George Harrison, Phillip Glass, Jean Pierre Rampal and many other pre-eminent figures in contemporary Western music. He won his first Grammy in 1967, for Best Chamber Music Performance, for West Meets East, a collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin. And he finished his most recent symphony, his first-ever conceived entirely for a Western orchestra, in 2008. This last work was performed by the London Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall in July 2010, a few months after Ravi celebrated his ninetieth birthday.