ABSTRACT
Ram Narayan, born in 1927, is famous as a pioneer of the modern solo sarangi in India and across the world. A hereditary musician of an unconventional background, he entered the world of the classical sarangi mainly through teachers outside his community (Bhai Lal, Madhav Prasad, and the legendary Abdul Wahid Khan), and he eventually developed a distinctive solo style of his own. Like other excellent sarangi players, he obtained a position at All India Radio, first in Lahore and, following the partition of India, in Delhi. But in 1950, after only eight years at AIR, he moved to Bombay to freelance in the film and recording industry while tenaciously pursuing his goal of building a career as a sarangi soloist. It took until 1956 for the Indian concert stage to accept his solo performance; by the 1960s there were solo recordings, and foreign tours followed, the first one to Europe and America in 1964. For the past three decades, Pandit Ram Narayan has continued to concertize and record in India and all over the world.
