Sultan Khan

Ustad Sultan Khan (15 April 1940 – 27 November 2011) was an Indian sarangi player and classical vocalist belonging to Sikar Gharana. He was one of the founding members of the Indian fusion group Tabla Beat Science, with Zakir Hussain and Bill Laswell. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India's 3rd highest civilian honour, in 2010.

Early life Sultan Khan was born on 15 April 1940, in Sikar District, Rajasthan, a princely state in the Indian Empire. He learned sarangi from his father Ustad Gulab Khan.

He gave his first performance at the All-India Music Conference at the age of 11,

He contributed vocals and sarangi to Dizrhythmia's first LP and Gavin Harrison's 1998 solo album Sanity & Gravity. He sang "Albela Sajan Aayo Re..."along with Kavita Krishnamurthy and Shankar Mahadevan in the Hindi film Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam in 1999. He has also given his voice in films like Maqbool, Kachche Dhaage, Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, Parzania, Jab We Met, Agni Varsha, Superstar, Rahul and Paanch. He also performed or recorded with Pakistani qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

British writer Geoff Dyer has said that he is an admirer of Sultan Khan's work, especially his rendition of a Rajastani folk song at the end of a 1991 recording of Rag Bhupali with Zakir Hussain on tabla. He has written of Khan's performance, "It is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I know - an audible vision of how the world might appear if you were able to purge yourself of all baseness and ugliness."

His last work, composed alongside his son Sabir Khan, was used in the multilingual film Amma.

Awards and recognition Padma Bhushan Award in 2010 His death occurred on the eve of the 11th anniversary of the release of his album, Piya Basanti Re.

He was undergoing kidney dialysis for the last four years and lost his speech in the last few days of his life. He died on his way to the hospital. The funeral was held in his hometown of Jodhpur, Rajasthan on 28 November 2011.

The New York Times newspaper carried his obituary and quoted the tabla player Zakir Hussain as saying, "It is thought among musicians in India that his sarangi literally sang. He was able to coax out of the instrument all the nuances of the vocal style of Indian music."