Nikhil Banerjee

Nikhil Banerjee was born in Calcutta into a Brahmin family, where music as a profession was discouraged, although his father, Jitendranath Banerjee, who was a sitarist by hobby, taught him the instrument. Young Nikhil grew into a child prodigy, won an all-Bengal sitar competition at the age of nine and soon was playing for All India Radio. At the time, his sister was a student of khyal great Amir Khan, who became a life-long influence. Jitendranath approached Mushtaq Ali Khan to take the boy as a student, and Banerjee studied with him for his initial training.[citation needed]

In 1947 Banerjee met Allauddin Khan, who was to become his main guru along with his son, Ali Akbar Khan. Both were sarod players. Banerjee went to Allauddin Khan's concerts and was desperate to have him as his teacher. Allauddin Khan did not want to take on more students, but changed his mind after listening to one of Banerjee's radio broadcasts. Though Allauddin Khan was Banerjee's main teacher, he also learned from Ali Akbar Khan, the son of Allaudin Khan, for many years.

After Maihar, Banerjee embarked on a concert career that was to take him to all corners of the world and last right up to his death. All through his life he kept taking lessons from Ustad Allauddin Khan and his children, Ustad Ali Akbar and Smt. Annapurna Devi. Perhaps reflecting his early upbringing, he always remained a humble musician, and was content with much less limelight than a player of his stature could have vied for. For him, music-making was a spiritual rather than a worldly path.[2] Even so, in 1968, he was decorated with the Padma Shri and posthumously received also the Padma Bhushan; at the time of his death by heart attack, he was a faculty member at the Ali Akbar College of Music in Calcutta. Nikhil Banerjee had at least one Disciple - Pandit Sukhraj Jhalla of Ahmedabad, India - who at age 90 continues to teach and is the Founder of the Ghadharva Vidhlay Music School in Ahemdabad India. He is one of the most sought after teachers of Indian Classical Music in the world and teaches very few students one on one - Ustad Kadar Khan's (of the Kalavant School in New York) son Shakir Khan and Anand Vyas are presently studying with him in India. Bannerjee recorded only a handfull of recordings during his lifetime but a series of live recordings continue to be released posthumously making sure that his musical legacy is preserved for posterity. He did not like very much recording within the confines of the studio, though his early studio recordings with EMI India such as Lalit , Purya Kalyan and Malkauns are now considered to be classic renditions of these Ragas. The posthumous live albums, many of which were brought out around the turn of the 21st Century by Raga Records in New York, and Chandadhara of Germany, are widely considered to be the finest documents of his playing. Today, he is regarded as one of the greatest sitarists of the 20th century.[

His interpretation of ragas was usually traditional, although he would sometimes take liberties with the raga in a moment of inspiration. Some people say he created a raga Manomanjari of his own, mixing ideas from Kalavati and Puriya, while others attribute it to Ustad Allaudin Khan.

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