Bismillah Khan

Bismillah Khan (born March 21, 1916, Dumraon, Bihar and Orissa province, British India—died August 21, 2006, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India) was an Indian musician who played the shehnai, a ceremonial oboelike North Indian horn, with such expressive virtuosity that he became a leading Indian classical music artist. His name was indelibly linked with the woodwind instrument.

Khan was born into a family of court musicians in Bihar. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Ali Baksh, who played the shehnai in Vishvanatha, a Hindu temple in Varanasi. He accompanied his uncle in playing at ceremonies for Hindu deities as well as at weddings. Khan learned numerous musical forms and ragas, and he improvised patterns that had been considered impossible for the shehnai. His concert performance at the All-India Music Conference in Kolkata in 1937 gained him public respect, and the shehnai, traditionally used only in a ceremonial capacity, came to be seen as a classical music instrument. Years of concert and radio performances and recordings followed.

Khan was a devout Muslim but performed at both Hindu and Muslim ceremonies and was considered a symbol of religious harmony. His fame was such that he was selected to perform for the ceremony at Delhi’s historic Red Fort as the Indian flag unfurled at the hour of India’s independence on August 15, 1947; his music was played on television every Independence Day. He turned down invitations to perform in other countries before 1966, when the Indian government insisted that he play at the Edinburgh International Festival. This gained him a following in the West, and he continued to appear in Europe and North America thereafter. In 2001 Khan was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, and the country observed a national day of mourning following his death in 2006.