Ravi Shankar

Chappaqua is one of Ravi Shankar’s most enigmatic and underappreciated works—an album with a strange origin, created for a film that ultimately rejected it. Originally commissioned as the soundtrack for Conrad Rooks’ 1966 semi-autobiographical film Chappaqua (a psychedelic journey through drug withdrawal and self-discovery), Shankar’s score was deemed “too beautiful” by the director and was replaced. But the music endured—far beyond the movie—and stands as one of Shankar’s most exploratory compositions.