By Diane De Pisa, Albany

I first became aware of this great musician in the late 1950s, when a friend from Kabul gave me that early recording of the Maestro with Mahapurush Misra, introduced by Yehudi Menuhin. Not much later I enjoyed a live concert by Khan with Misra in San Francisco. And, memorably also, I heard the Maestro with my future husband—Elio De Pisa from Rome—at a unique venue on an island in the middle of the Tiber. Elio, a skilled pianist, was an immediate convert to the Indian mode.

We enjoyed many concerts at AACM and around the Bay Area until Elio’s death in 2002. No better way to share a wavelength with a loved one than to hear the Maestro’s unique rendition of timeless ragas!