Ananda Shankar dead

CALCUTTA, March 26 (PTI) — India's leading fusion music exponent, Ananda Shankar, died at a private nursing home here today after a fortnight-long treatment for cardiac ailments.

Shankar, 56, is survived by wife Tanushree and a daughter.

Son of legendary dancer Uday Shankar and danseuse Amala Shankar and nephew of sitar maestro Pt Ravi Shankar, Ananda Shankar imbibed music, dance and culture, co-existing harmoniously in the household, very early in life.

It was this versatile foundation which bore fruit later as he began experimenting with a 'trendy' musical form combining finer points of eastern and western instruments.

Regarded as one of the foremost exponents of experimental music after Timir Baran, Shankar was the one to think of unconventional amalgam like using a mridangam with guitar or backing a sarod with a rockbeat and electronic sound effects.

'And all this spontaneity without for a moment diluting the uniqueness of Indian music,' says noted lyricist and compatriot Pulak Bandopadhyay.

With his choreographer wife Tanushree, Ananda Shankar formed an excellent team scoring music for choral dance compositions and performing with distinction both at home and abroad.

An open-minded man, Ananda Shankar infused liberal doses of folk music forms in his composition with the wild pattern of rhythm.

Feet-tapping music for the World Cup, 1996, a number of festivals of India abroad and a special orchestra of 75 musicians for the Akashvani award ceremony, 1992, — he composed all this and much more.

Shankar's popular scores include the 'national bharatiyam' for the Nehru centenary celebration, which 50,000 children sang in unison.

Among the several awards and felicitations that he won were the national award for best music direction for a score in Mrinal Sen's film, 'Chorus'.

An honorary citizen of Maryland and Baltimore in USA, he ran the Ananda Shankar School of Performing Arts here which received adultations from art connoisseurs worldwide.

Pt Ravi Shankar expressed shock over the death of his nephew Ananda Shankar.

"I share the terrible grief along with his mother, wife, daughter and sister. It seems so unfair that at the prime of his life he has left us," the Bharat Ratna recipient said in a message.