Nikhil Banerjee was a famous player of which instrument?

Explanation

Pandit Nikhil Banerjee (1931-1986) was one of the greatest sitar players of the 20th century. He belonged to the Maihar gharana and was a student of Ustad Allauddin Khan, Annapurna Devi and Ustad Ali Akbar Khan.

Nikhil Banerjee was born in Kolkata. His father, Jitendranath Banerjee, was an amateur sitar player, and Nikhil began learning the sitar from him at a young age. He was a child prodigy and won an All India sitar competition at the age of nine, becoming one of the youngest musicians to be employed by All India Radio. He later became a disciple of the great musician Ustad Allauddin Khan at Maihar, where he lived and trained in the strict traditional manner. He also learnt from Allauddin Khan's daughter, Annapurna Devi, and his son, Ali Akbar Khan. Nikhil Banerjee became known for his deep, meditative and emotionally intense style of playing, his perfect technique and his complete devotion to the music. Many critics consider him one of the finest sitarists of his time, together with Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Vilayat Khan. He performed widely in India and abroad. He received the Padma Shri (1968) and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (1974). He died in Kolkata in 1986, at the age of 54.

The sitar is a long-necked stringed instrument of Hindustani music, with movable frets and a large gourd resonator. It has six or seven main strings, plucked with a wire plectrum (mizrab), and about 11 to 13 sympathetic strings. Other famous sitar players include Ravi Shankar, Vilayat Khan, Shahid Parvez Khan, Budhaditya Mukherjee and Anoushka Shankar.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Sarod is linked with Ali Akbar Khan and Amjad Ali Khan.
• ✗Tabla is linked with Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain.
• ✗Santoor is linked with Shivkumar Sharma.