By Asia Samachar | United States |
Tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain who brought Indian classical music to global prominence has died at the age of 73.
The master teacher and a mesmerising performer on stage passed away in a hospital in San Francisco, US, on Dec 16 due to lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
He is survived by his wife Antonia Minnecola, a dancer in the Indian classical style Kathak, whom he married in 1978. The couple have two daughter, Isabella and Anisa Qureshi.
Born on March 9, 1951, in Mumbai’s Mahim to legendary tabla master Ustad Allarakha, Zakir Hussain displayed an innate talent for rhythm from a young age. He began learning the tabla at three and was performing in concerts by 12.
A child prodigy, he went on to collaborate with Indian legends such as Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan, and Shivkumar Sharma, as well as Western icons like The Beatles, Yo-Yo Ma, and Mickey Hart, according to reports.
Zakir dated his musical career from two days after he was born, according to a NYT report.
“I was brought home from the hospital,” he told NPR in 2015. “The tradition is that the son is handed to the father, and then the father has to recite a prayer in his son’s ear, putting him on his way. My father, when he took me in his arm, instead of reciting a prayer, he sang rhythms in my ear. And my mother was very upset and said, ‘Why are you doing this?’ And he said, ‘Because this is my prayer.’”
He studied and taught ethnomusicology at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he earned a Ph.D. He moved to Northern California to teach at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, where he led the Tal Vadya Rhythm Band, a cross-cultural, percussion-centered group.
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