Ustad Rais Khan

Rais Khan was born in Indore in 1939 into a family with a long line of instrumentalists. His father, Mohammed Khan, was a rudra veena player and sitarist, and began teaching him as a small child on a miniature coconut-shell sitar. The family moved to Bombay, where Rais Khan grew up and gave his first public performance while still a boy.

In 1955 he was chosen to represent India at the International Youth Festival in Warsaw, where he was awarded a first prize. From then on he performed steadily in India and abroad, and became widely known outside the concert hall through his sitar work in Hindi film music, notably for compositions by Madan Mohan.

In 1979 he met the Pakistani singer Bilqees Khanum, whom he later married, and in 1986 he moved to Pakistan and took Pakistani citizenship. He continued to perform almost until his death in Karachi in 2017. Reference sources place his family within the Mewati gharana and connect his father's playing to the beenkar approach associated with Indore; his exact affiliation is described differently in different accounts, and this archive does not assign him to the Imdadkhani (Etawah) gharana on the basis of family connections alone. He was also often described as a relative of Ustad Vilayat Khan, an association he himself discussed in interviews.

Rais Khan was known for a wide, singing meend and for closing recitals by singing — often the film song "Ghungroo toot gaye" — to show listeners how close instrumental phrasing is to the voice. Commentators describe his alap, gatkari and gamak work as distinct in pacing and technique from the Imdadkhani manner with which he is sometimes grouped.