Bengal Foundation mourns the passing of Annapurna Devi.

Annapurna Devi was a distinguished surbahar artist, an exponent of the Maihar gharana. She belonged to a long line of musicians in her family; her father Allauddin Khan was a royal court musician at the court of Maharaja Brijnath Singh and the founder of the Maihar gharana, her uncles – Fakir Aftabuddin Khan and Ayet Ali Khan – were noted musicians in the present-day Bangladesh, and her brother Ali Akbar Khan was also hailed as a legendary Sarod maestro. Devi was married to the iconic sitarist Ravi Shankar from 1941 to 1982, and their son Shubhendra Shankar also performed as a musician. She was later married to Rooshikumar Pandya, a well-known communication expert and a successful sitarist in the United States.

Annapurna Devi trained under the guidance of her father and became an accomplished surbahar artist soon after. She performed duets with her former husband during the 1950’s, but gave up on performing live to save her marriage. Devi relegated herself to only teaching after her divorce, and has had a number of notable disciples throughout her career.  She was a teacher to Hariprasad Chaurasia, Nityanand Haldipur, Nikhil Banerjee, Amit Bhattacharya, Pradeep Barot, Sudhir Phadke, Sandhya Apte and Saswatti Saha, amongst many others.

Devi was a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, the Deshikottam – an honorary doctorate degree by Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore’s Visva-Bharati University, and the title of ‘Ratna’ by the Sangeet Natak Akademi.

Annapurna Devi passed away on 13 October 2018 at the age of 91.