Imrat Khan - Training and Early Career

Training and Early Career

Imrat was born in Calcutta into a family of musicians tracing its pedigree back for several generations, to the court musicians of the Mughal rulers. His father was Enayat Khan (1895–1938), recognised as a leading sitar and surbahar player of his time, as had been his grandfather, Imdad Khan (1848–1920), before him. His father died when Imrat was a child, so he was raised by his mother, Bashiran Begum and her father, singer Bande Hassan Khan. In 1944, the family moved with rising star Vilayat Khan, Imrat's elder brother, to Bombay where both the brothers learned extensively from uncle Wahid Khan, Enayat Khan's brother. Wahid Khan was one of the greatest surbahar players of his generation and a top-level sitar player, and taught Imrat on the instruments in the family style, known as the Imdadkhani gharana (school), or Etawah Gharana, after a village outside Agra where Imdad Khan lived.

In 1952 Vilayat and Imrat moved in together in Calcutta. They performed together for many years. From the 1960s onwards, Imrat has performed and recorded solo, playing both sitar and surbahar.

Read more about this topic:  Imrat Khan

Famous quotes containing the words training, early and/or career:

    “When the child is twelve, your wife buys her a splendidly silly article of clothing called a training bra. To train what? I never had a training jock. And believe me, when I played football, I could have used a training jock more than any twelve-year-old needs a training bra.”
    —Bill Cosby (20th century)

    “I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”
    —Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)

    “It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
    —Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)