Famous sitar players
Any list like this leaves out more than it includes. Hindustani music has produced extraordinary sitarists across many families and generations. This is a starting point for listening: the players who shaped how the sitar sounds, and the ones to hear now. Their lineages are in brackets — the gharanas guide explains what they mean.
The players who shaped the modern sitar
Ravi Shankar (Maihar). The sitarist who brought the instrument to the world. A student of Allauddin Khan, he was a composer as well as a performer, a tireless teacher, and the bridge between Indian classical music and Western audiences, from Yehudi Menuhin to George Harrison. His playing combines deep alap with rhythmic brilliance and wit.
Vilayat Khan (Etawah / Imdadkhani). The great rival voice. He developed the gayaki ang, the singing style that makes the sitar imitate the human voice, and redesigned his instrument to suit it. Many players today, in every lineage, phrase the way they do because of him.
Nikhil Banerjee (Maihar). Often named by other musicians as one of the most profound sitarists of the century, he studied with Allauddin Khan and was influenced by others too. His slow alaps are introspective and intensely focused. He had a lower public profile than Shankar or Vilayat Khan, and is deeply loved by serious listeners.
Imrat Khan (Etawah). Vilayat Khan's younger brother, a master of the surbahar — the larger, deeper bass cousin of the sitar — as well as the sitar, and the father of a family of musicians.
Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan. Known for a distinctive style built on intricate right-hand work and clarity, sometimes called the Jafferkhani baaj.
Sitarists to listen to today
Anoushka Shankar (Maihar). Ravi Shankar's daughter and student, and probably the most widely heard sitarist in the world today. She plays classical recitals and records across flamenco, electronic and orchestral music, with many Grammy nominations.
Shahid Parvez Khan (Etawah / Imdadkhani). From the Imdadkhani family, admired for the vocal phrasing of the gayaki ang and for remarkable speed and control. For many listeners, the leading exponent of the Etawah style today.
Shujaat Khan (Etawah / Imdadkhani). Vilayat Khan's son, who often sings while he plays. His collaborations with the Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor, in the group Ghazal, earned a Grammy nomination.
Budhaditya Mukherjee (Imdadkhani). Trained by his father, and known for combining vocal phrasing with dazzling fast playing. Plays the surbahar as well.
Nishat Khan (Etawah). Imrat Khan's son, a classical sitarist who has also written for and performed with orchestras and in cross-cultural projects.
Purbayan Chatterjee. A virtuoso classical player who also works widely in contemporary and world-music collaborations.
Niladri Kumar (Maihar line through his father, Kartick Kumar). A classical sitarist who also invented the zitar, an electric instrument derived from the sitar, and plays it in film and fusion music.
Kartik Seshadri (Maihar). A disciple of Ravi Shankar, a performer and composer, and a teacher who directs the Indian classical music ensemble at the University of California, San Diego.
Rishab Rikhiram Sharma. A young sitarist who studied with Ravi Shankar in his final years, from the family behind the Rikhi Ram instrument workshop in New Delhi. He has reached a large new audience online and in concert, and is a good example of how many people are now coming to the sitar for the first time.
How to listen to them
Choose one raga and hear it from several players — Yaman, evening, bright and expansive, is recorded by almost everyone:
Once you know this phrase, you'll hear it in every Yaman — shaped differently by each player. A Maihar sitarist and an Etawah sitarist will take it in noticeably different directions, and that difference is the best introduction to the gharanas there is.
What makes a great sitarist?
When musicians praise a sitarist, they usually mean a few specific things, and knowing them makes listening sharper:
- Tone. A full, ringing sound on the main string, with the jawari's shimmer under control — never thin, never rattly.
- Command of the raga. Phrases that could only belong to that raga, developed patiently, without wandering into a neighbouring one.
- Meend. Glides that land exactly in tune and pass through exactly the right notes. Listen to how far, and how slowly, a player can pull.
- Laya — rhythm. Ease with the tabla, the ability to play across the beat and land precisely on sam.
- Imagination. The same raga sounding new, without breaking its rules.
Different players lead with different strengths. Part of the fun is deciding which ones move you. The course's ear training lesson gives you a method for this kind of listening.
Where to begin
- One legend, one living player. Ravi Shankar or Nikhil Banerjee, then Anoushka Shankar or Shahid Parvez Khan.
- The same raga each time. It's the only way to hear the player rather than the raga.
- Start with the alap. The slow, unaccompanied opening shows a player's sound and ideas most clearly.
- Then the gat with tabla, where the rhythm and the tihais come in.
If the sitar first reached you through rock and pop, the sitar in Western music guide tells the other half of Ravi Shankar's story.