Zakir Hussain

Zakir Hussain serves as one of the world’s most visible models of enlightened cross-cultural musicianship. Over the course of his six-decade-long career, he has elevated the status of the tabla both in India and around the world through countless artistic collaborations, concert tours, commissions, recordings and film scores.

He first studied tabla with his father, the renowned master-musician Ustad Alla Rakha, and began concert touring at the age of 12. In 1970 he performed his first concert in the US, with Pandit Ravi Shankar, and in 1974 joined guitarist John McLaughlin, violinist L. Shankar, and percussionist Vikku Vinayakram to create the legendary band Shakti. His many awards include the Padma Bhushan (2002) and Padma Shri (1988), given by the Republic of India to civilians of merit.

Alongside his busy international performance schedule, Zakir Hussain has been a generous teacher and mentor for thousands of students who, over the last 30 years, have attended his annual tabla workshops in northern California. In 1992, Zakir Hussain founded Moment! Records to release original cross-cultural collaborations, live concert performances by leading masters of Hindustani and Carnatic music, and a series titled Masters of Percussion. In North America and Europe, he is well known for his biennial Masters of Percussion tours, ongoing since 1996, which bring together leading percussion players from around the world to collaborate and perform.

Zakir Hussain is the 2022 Kyoto Prize Laureate in Arts and Philosophy.