Ravi Shankar's Festival from India
| Ravi Shankar's Festival from India | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Studio album by Ravi Shankar | |
| Released | December 1968 |
| Recorded | mid 1968 World Pacific Studio, Los Angeles |
| Genre | Indian classical |
| Label | World Pacific |
| Producer | Richard Bock |
Ravi Shankar's Festival from India is a double album by Indian musician and composer Ravi Shankar, released on World Pacific Records in December 1968. It contains studio recordings made by a large ensemble of performers, many of whom Shankar had brought to the United States from India. Among the musicians were Shivkumar Sharma, Jitendra Abhisheki, Palghat Raghu, Lakshmi Shankar, Aashish Khan and Alla Rakha. The project presented Indian classical music in an orchestral setting, so recalling Shankar's work as musical director of All India Radio in the years before he achieved international fame as a soloist during the 1960s.
After recording the album in Los Angeles, Shankar's ensemble – also titled the Festival from India – toured America during June and July 1968. Some of the performers subsequently taught at Shankar's Kinnara School of Music, instructing Western students in the intricacies of Indian music. Shankar revisited the Festival from India concept in 1974, when George Harrison sponsored a program of European concerts titled Ravi Shankar's Music Festival from India.
Having achieved international fame over 1966–67, Ravi Shankar spent the early part of 1968 in India filming a documentary of his life, Raga, and writing his first autobiography, My Music, My Life. Both of these projects allowed him to reflect on his status as an ambassador for Indian culture and on the criticism that he received from purists and some fellow musicians in India, who accused him of betraying his roots and commercialising Indian classical music. In a 2007 interview, Shankar continued to refute such criticism, citing his adherence to the guru-shishya tradition, whereby he had nurtured the development of his protégés Harihar Rao, Amiyo Das Gupta, Kartick Kumar and Shamim Ahmed after moving to the United States. He also highlighted the 1968 Festival from India revue as one of many musical ventures where he had brought over other Indian classical performers that were little known in the West.
...
Wikipedia