Amjad Ali Khan and his two sons Amaan Ali Bangash and Ayaan Ali Bangash are renowned musicians who play the sarod, a popular stringed instrument used in Hindustani classical music on the Indian subcontinent. Now, following a performance in Seattle in 2023, they are touring the globe with a one-night return to the University of Washington’s Meany Center for the Performing Arts.
During this performance, the sarod trio will be performing both Indian classical ragas and Indian folk music. “Indian classical music is a result of a refinement of folk music and developed into its highly sophisticated form over more than five thousand years,” Khan explained. “As the name suggests, classical music represents the concentrated essence of Indian music in its richest forms.”
In contrast, Khan views folk music as one of the most natural forms of music which is self-taught around the world. “It’s interesting to see how music can define and create a region of any country,” he said. “We will present ragas and interesting rhythmic time cycles along with folk music.”
Khan emphasizes the improvisatory nature of Indian music. “While performing on the stage, cosmic powers are conducting and controlling us. Whatever we receive, we are transmitting to the audience, so definitely there is spirituality involved in Indian classical music, as there is no written score,” he elaborated. “We therefore follow an oral tradition.”
So it’s fitting for Khan to bring his sons onstage with him. “Music and musicality are passed on from guru to student directly,” Khan described. “In this manner, music has been handed down from generation to generation.”
For Indian classical musicians, music becomes a way of life. “Right from my childhood, I understood the vastness and the oceanic depths of music,” Khan recalled. “I feel that the twelve musical notes are so very powerful and vibrant like the sun, and all the harmony around it are like its rays, just like light and shade!”
Khan was six years old when he gave his first sarod recital. “I was very fortunate that I was the youngest child of my father and guru Haafiz Ali Khan,” he said. “Music is the greatest wealth that I inherited from my forefathers, one that I am constantly sharing with the world.”
He admits that there was a tradeoff in becoming musically proficient at such a young age. “I got the opportunity to be around my guru and, along with music, realize the importance he gave to human values of life and complete surrender to God,” Khan shared. “In a traditional musical family, most of the kids become responsible very early in life and they have the highest order of family pride. I could not enjoy the freedom of my childhood.”
Because of that, Khan does not remember any one moment when music entered his life. “It was a part of me from as early as I can remember,” he said. “Indeed, I cannot think of a moment when music has been separated from my life.”
Khan’s father was the sixth generation of his family’s musical tradition. “Today, a wise man does not allow his son to become a classical musician, because of the uncertainty and insecurity of a livelihood,” he mused. “That is why, in the past, only Sufi saints and fakirs could dedicate their lives to music or to God.”
But Khan’s family could not resist music. “Since my childhood, I always wanted my instrument, the sarod, to be able to express the entire range of human emotions, to sing, shout, whisper, and cry,” he said. “By the benevolence of the heavens, the sarod has become far more expressive than it was fifty years ago.”
Each of Khan’s sons reports coming to music on a slightly different path. “Initially, I was conditioned into music, but now it’s a passion and a reason for immense happiness in my life,” Amaan said. “It’s a matter of great honor, and I feel highly privileged that God gave me the opportunity to be born to this family.”
Meanwhile, Ayaan made efforts when he was younger to distinguish between when Khan was his father, as opposed to Khan as his musical guru. “Now I feel ecstatic to think and realize from time to time that my guru is my father,” Ayaan said. “As a classical musician, music for me is not just a profession but a complete way of life.”
As children, both sons were encouraged to listen to a wide range of music. “We were never asked to listen to a particular artist, or not to listen to another, to listen only to classical music and not to listen to the music of the West or Bollywood,” Amaan said. “The choice and the freedom were entirely ours, but it is only natural to be influenced by the music that your guru refers to when he plays.”
The time spent growing up together helps the trio create seamless music. “The mantra taught by our parents has been to be a good human being first, and good music will follow,” Amaan said. “As siblings, we know each other’s mind on stage.”
This foundation allows creativity to flow. “For those few hours when you are onstage, you are in a creative frenzy, sometimes supernaturally unreal,” Ayaan shared. “There are times when you get off stage only to realize that something special happened up there on stage that day.”
On the sarod, there are no frets as there are on the guitar or sitar. “We press the strings with the edge of our nails and not with the fingertip as most stringed instruments,” Ayaan said. “You are pretty much walking on the edge at all times.”
Both brothers find that to be enough of a challenge, which limits other types of competitiveness. “Getting inspired by each other is what is healthy and one should only compete with yourself,” Ayaan cautioned. “Life isn’t a race. We are not in a derby.”
Even if it were, the race might never be won. “Though all instruments have their own journey of learning, the sarod is a very difficult instrument to do justice to,” Amaan admitted. “A lifetime is not enough to master, or rather understand, what the instrument wants to say.”
And yet, the elder Khan indeed excels not only in sarod performance but also in composition, for among his many awards, he received the Gandhi UNESCO Medal in Paris for his composition Bapukauns. “I feel truly blessed and overwhelmed with all the love,” Khan responded. “A wonderful mystery of music is the fact that one can spend a lifetime trying to attain knowledge and perfection and still feel that one has only touched a mere drop of an ocean. Along the journey of searching and discovering, the learning never stops!”
In composition, Khan draws an analogy between music and flowers. “As we use flowers in worship, welcoming, honoring, departure, and celebration no matter what our race, origin, religion, or language, we similarly arrange musical notes into ‘bouquets’ or compositions which display all our human feelings and emotions,” he observed. “Musical vibrations can convey moods and emotions and have the ability to mold and shape our consciousness.”
He also sees music as the material for building bridges. “Musicians and listeners of music have been communicating with each other across all barriers through this ‘language’ from time immemorial,” he said. “All the musicians of the world, we are committed and dedicated to the peace and harmony of the world. We are like one world, one family!”
But Khan is not blind to the risks emerging in our current world. “I am really proud of the achievements of mankind, but technology must be cultivated in harmony with peace and tradition,” he warned. “What worries me is that the future children of this world should not behave or look like robots.”
To prevent this, Khan believes we must respect our histories. “It is vital that modernization must be accompanied by a reverence for academic traditions which have been valued throughout time,” he said. “We need kind and compassionate people in the world and I see classical music as a means to nurture such feelings.”
Amjad Ali Khan, Amaan Ali Bangash, and Ayaan Ali Bangash perform on Feb. 21 at Meany Center for the Performing Arts.
