Pandit Anant Lal

Anant Lal was born in Varanasi in 1927 into a family that had played the shehnai for more than two hundred years. He began learning the instrument at nine, from his father Pandit Mithai Lal and his uncles, and later studied with the thumri singer Pandit Mahadev Prasad Mishra of Varanasi. He also played the bansuri.

He spent his working life as a staff artist at All India Radio until 1987, recording under his own name and playing alongside sitar players including Ravi Shankar and Debu Chaudhuri. In 1974 Ravi Shankar chose him for the Music Festival from India, then the largest Indian ensemble to tour Europe; Anant Lal's solo feature was the piece "Kajri", and he appeared on the studio album released on George Harrison's Dark Horse Records in 1976 and in the Royal Albert Hall performance filmed on 23 September 1974, later issued on the Collaborations box set. His own releases include Splendour in Shehnai, issued by T-Series in 1990.

He taught in the Benares manner; his students included his son Daya Shankar and the shehnai player Shanjeev Shankar, and his grandson Anand Shankar trained with him before turning to tabla. He received the Uttar Pradesh Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1984 and the national Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1989. He died on 3 March 2011, aged 84, of a heart attack.

Like Bismillah Khan, whose example he followed, he worked to move the shehnai out of its ceremonial setting and into full classical recital. He played bansuri as well, and his concert work ranged from solo raga recitals to a place inside Ravi Shankar's large ensemble writing.