Ustad Aashish Khan is the greatest
exponent of the famous Senia-Maihar Gharana which was started by Baba Alauddin Khan.
Ustad Aashish Khan is the grandson
of Baba Allauddin Khan and is the eldest son of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. The Senia-Maihar Gharana has evolved through
three generations of great musicians Ravi Shankar, Ali Akbar Khan (son of Baba), Annapurna Devi, Nikhil Banerjee,
Radhika Mohan Maitra, Bahadur Khan, Sharan Rani, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Pannalal Ghosh and many others.
Ustad Aashish Khan was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2006 in the Best World
Music category for his album Golden Strings of the Sarode. In 2007 he also became the first ever Indian classical
musician to become a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, the UK's highest society in Asian
arts and culture. With Ravi Shankar, he has composed the background score for
Oscar Winner Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar, which won an Oscar and for Parash Pathar, Jalsaghar, and Richard Attenborough's film Gandhi.
Aashish Khan has collaborated with George Harrison, Ringo Starr,
The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Alice Coltrane, Emil Richards, the
Philadelphia String Quartet and many others.
The word Senia derives from
Mian Tansen (court musician at Emperor Akbars court)
whose descendent Wazir Muhammad Khan taught Baba Allauddin Khan in the Beenkar tradition exemplifying the Dhrupad style. Ustad Allauddin Khan later became the royal court musician of the King of Maihar.
