Anoushka Shankar

Sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar is a singular figure in the Indian classical and progressive world music scenes. Her dynamic and spiritual musicality has garnered six Grammy Award nominations, recognition as the youngest ‒ and first female ‒ recipient of a British House of Commons Shield, credit as an Asian Hero by TIME Magazine, an Eastern Eye Award for Music and a Songlines Best Artist Award. Deeply rooted in the Indian Classical music tradition, Anoushka studied exclusively from the age of nine under her father and guru, the late Ravi Shankar, and made her professional debut as a classical sitarist at the age of thirteen. By the age of 20, she had made three classical recordings for EMI/Angel and received her first Grammy nomination, becoming the first Indian female and youngest-ever nominee in the World Music category. In 2005, Anoushka released her self-produced breakthrough album Rise, which earned her a second Grammy nomination and made her the first Indian artist to perform at the award ceremony. In 2011, she signed to Deutsche Grammophon, heralding a fertile creative period with a series of exploratory CDs: Traveller, which examines the relationship between Indian classical music and Spanish flamenco; Traces of You (featuring Shankar’s half-sister Norah Jones on vocals); and Home, a purely Indian classical album, where she returned to the ragas her father had taught her. Her 2016 album Land of Gold was written in response to the humanitarian trauma of displaced people fleeing conflict and poverty and 2019 saw the release of Reflections, a compilation album mapping the highlights of her 20-year recording career. As an international solo sitarist, Anoushka has performed in a range of distinguished venues, and she has championed her father’s four sitar concertos with the world's leading orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras. Besides performing as a solo sitarist, her compositional work has led to cross-cultural collaborations with artists such as Sting, M.I.A, Herbie Hancock, Pepe Habichuela, Karsh Kale, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Joshua Bell demonstrating cross-cultural dialogue and the versatility of the sitar across musical genres. Anoushka’s artistic output increasingly seeks to reflect her impassioned support of women’s rights and social justice, while also promoting gender equality and coordinating call-to-actions in response to the European refugee crisis. She has authored a biographical portrait of her father, Bapi: The Love of My Life, and has been a regular columnist for New Delhi’s First City magazine and the Hindustan Times.