Shujaat Khan

Shujaat Husain Khan (born 14th August, 1960) is a noted Indian musician and sitar player belonging to the Imdadkhani gharana. He has over 60 albums to his credit besides a Grammy nomination. He has also been acclaimed for his vocals, and has performed in the band Ghazal with Kayhan Kalhor. His style known as the gayaki ang, is imitative of the subtleties of the human voice. Shujaat Husain Khan was born in Calcutta to legendary sitar player, Ustad Vilayat Khan. He has musical pedigree that goes back seven generations: his grandfather, Ustad Enayat Khan; his great-grandfather, Ustad Imdad Khan; and his great-great-grandfather, Ustad Sahebdad Khan - all leading artists and torchbearers of the Imdadkhani gharana with its roots in Mymensingh (present day Bangladesh). Shujaat Husain Khan has performed at numerous music festivals in India and has traveled around the world performing in Asia, Africa, North America and Europe. His approach to rhythm is largely intuitive, fresh and spontaneous, always astonishing his audiences. He is also known for his exceptional voice, which he uses for singing folk songs, including the album Lajo Lajo, as well as poetry, as in Hazaron Khwaishen. Shujaat Khan was featured in the concerts celebrating India's 50th anniversary of independence in 2007, and performed at the Carnegie Hall in New York, Paramount Theater in Seattle, and Meyers Symphony Theater in Dallas. In a special performance, he also played at the United Nations in the Assembly Hall in Geneva. His memorable appearances include performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Royce Hall in Los Angeles and Congress Hall in Berlin. In the summer of 1999, he was the featured soloist with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. His collaboration with different genres of music has been a very strong point as is evidenced by the enormously successful Indo-Persian venture, the Ghazal Ensemble. Their album, Rain, was nominated for a Grammy award in 2004. In January 2000, the Boston Herald listed Shujaat Khan, along with luminaries like Seiji Ozawa and Luciano Pavarotti among the top 25 upcoming cultural events for the year. He has been invited as visiting faculty at the Dartington School of Music in England, the University of Washington in Seattle, and at UCLA. He has over 50 musical releases on a variety of international labels; and a video called Khandan. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.