Vilayat Khan Biography 
Vilayat Khan was a well known sitar maestro from Bengal. He was born in Gauripur, British India to Enayat Khan, a sitar maestro and bass sitar on August 28, 1928. His family belonged to Rajput and has been court musicians of Mughals. He belonged to Imdadkhani Gharana of music. His family was of Hindu origin, but later converted to Islam. He recorded his first 78-RPM disc at the age of 8. After that, he worked for about 65 years recording music, before he passed away on March 13, 2004 suffering from lung cancer. He gave his last concert in 2004 at the age of 75, a few days before he died. Media and his fans have celebrated a lot, the rivalry that has existed between him and Ravi Shankar. He has refused all the honours given to him except special decorations of "Bharat Sitar Samrat" by the Artistes Association of India and "Aftab-e-Sitar" from President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed.
Vilayat Khan lost his father at a younger age and his education was carried forward by other members of his family. He learned music from Wahid Khan, his maternal grandfather, who was a sitar and surbahar maestro. He was also taught by Bande Hassan Khan, his uncle, Zinde Hassan and his mother, Bashiran Begum. As a child, Vilayat wanted to become a vocalist. But his mother insisted on sitar and later he became a famous sitar player. Yet he occasionally used to sing in concerts and had composed khyal bandishes using the pen name ‘Nath Piya’.
His first concert was at All Bengal Music Conference in 1944. His performance made headlines as "Electrifying Sitar" in Bombay. Later he worked with sitar-makers Kanailal and Hiren Roy and preferred to perform without a tanpura drone. He re-interpreted ragas like Bhankar, Jaijaivanti and composed new ones - Enayatkhani Kanada, Sanjh Saravali, Kalavanti and Mand Bhairav. He was the first Indian musician to play in England after independence (1951). He has always turned away awards and recognitions given to him. He even refused Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan and later Padma Vibhushan declaring the committee musically incompetent to judge him and even termed it an insult. He turned down was the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award too.
Published: N/A
Updated: February 17, 2014
