As one of the most talked-about figures, Ravi Shankar has built a significant fortune. Our team analyzed the latest data to provide a clear picture of their income.

What Was Ravi Shankar's Net Worth?

Ravi Shankar was an Indian musician who had a net worth of $5 million at the time of his death in 2012. Ravi Shankar is one of the best-known sitar players and Hindustani classical music composers of all time. He grew up touring his home country and much of Europe with his brother's dance group before deciding he'd rather learn to play the sitar. He studied under famed musician Allauddin Khan for several years before breaking into composing. Shankar put together the music for Satyajit Ray's "Apu Trilogy," and by 1949, scored a gig as All India Radio New Dehli's music director.

In the 1950s, he was invited to perform in the Soviet Union and New York City before touring different parts of the world. In the early '60s, he became the first Indian to compose music for foreign films. During that decade, he founded Mumbai's Kinnara School of Music and later opened a branch in Los Angeles. He performed at Woodstock and published his autobiography, "My Music, My Life," all during the latter half of the decade. Shankar taught at City College of New York and UCLA before landing the job of chair of the Department of Indian Music at the California Institute of the Arts. He won dozens of awards, including three Grammys and the Tagore Award. Shankar was nominated for one Oscar during his career.

Ravi married Annapurna Devi in 1941, and they had one son together before their separation. Shankar began dating dancer Kamala Shastri before having an affair with New York concert producer Sue Jones.As a result of the affair, in 1979, Jones gave birth to future jazz artist and Grammy winnerNorah Jones.Ravi later married Sunkaya Rajan in 1989. In 1999, he was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna. Shankar died on December 11, 2012, after a heart valve operation.

Early Life

Ravi Shankar was born Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury on April 7, 1920, in Benares, India, which is now Varanasi following India's independence from Great Britain. He was the son of Shyma Shankar Chowdhury, a lawyer and scholar who also served as a politician, and Hemangini Devi. Ravi was the seventh child and grew up with his six older brothers. His father moved to London for work when he was a baby, and the two did not meet until Shankar was eight years old. At the age of 10, Shankar went to Paris as a member of a dance group. While in the group, he learned to play instruments and dance. The group traveled around Europe, and Shankar was exposed to lots of different types of music. He was later offered musical training by Allauddin Khan, the lead musician at the court of the princely state of Maihar.

Career

Shankar's serious studies of music began when he became Khan's pupil. He trained on sitar and surbahar and learned classical and traditional styles of Indian music. He began to perform publicly on sitar in December 1939, and his debut performance was a duet with Ali Akbar Khan. He completed his musical training in 1944. Ravi then moved to Mumbai and joined the Indian People's Theatre Association, for whom he composed music for ballets in 1945 and 1946. He also began to record music for HMV India and worked as a music director for All India Radio from 1949 to 1956. Around this time, he founded the Indian National Orchestra and also was the music director for several Hindi movies.

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Disclaimer: All net worth figures are estimates based on public data.