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About Harihar Rao
- Harihar Rao (January 21, 1927 – January 13, 2013) was an Indian-born American musician, noted for playing tabla and sitar. He was born into a prominent musical family in Mangalore, India.
- He moved to the United States in 1964, residing in Pasadena, California.
- Rao was a Fulbright Scholar at UCLA., He worked in the ethnomusicology department at UCLA and privately taught and mentored students of the sitar. Rao explored a variety of fusions of Indian and western music.
- His 'Hindustani Jazz Sextet', which included the trumpeter Don Ellis, combined classical Indian rhythms and jazz forms.
- In 1965 Rao and Ellis co-wrote An Introduction to Indian Music for the Jazz Musician, which was printed by Jazz Magazine.
- The 1966 album Raga Rock combined Rao's sitar playing with the Folkswingers' western instruments to cover popular rock songs, such as "Paint It Black" and "Norwegian Wood".
- In 1967, Rao published the book Introduction to Sitar, which sold more than 500 copies in its first two weeks of publication, and ultimately thousands of copies in four printings.
- Rao was the longest-standing protégé and a close friend for more than six decades of sitar player Ravi Shankar.
- Rao and Shankar co-founded the Music Circle, an organization dedicated to promoting Indian classical music.
- He served as the Artistic Director of the Music Circle for 40 years. He became a U.S.
- citizen in 1969.
- Rao taught at a number of colleges and universities in Southern California, including UCLA, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Los Angeles, California Institute for the Arts, and Caltech.
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