Zakir Hussain’s spectacular tabla playing is one of the great sounds in contemporary music.

A complete virtuoso at the height of his creative powers, his career is a roll call of highlights. He played with Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan, then made his name from a series of extraordinary cross-genre collaborations with the likes of John McLaughlin in the great acoustic group Shakti and Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead.

Zakir Hussain’s accolades include the Grammy Award and the Ratna Sadasya, Sangeet Natak Akademi’s most prestigious honour. He was awarded SF Jazz’s Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his “unparalleled contribution to the world of music”.