Anoushka Shankar | |
|---|---|
 Shankar at theRudolstadt-Festival 2016 | |
| Born | Anoushka Hemangini Shankar (1981-06-09)9 June 1981 (age 44) London, England |
| Citizenship | |
| Occupations | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Father | Ravi Shankar |
| Relatives |
|
| Musical career | |
| Origin | London |
| Genres | |
| Instruments | |
| Years active | 1995–present |
| Labels | Angel,Deutsche Grammophon,Mercury KX |
| Website | anoushkashankar |
Musical artist | |
Anoushka Hemangini Shankar (Bengali pronunciation:[onuʃkaʃɔŋkor]; born 9 June 1981) is aBritish-American[1][2]sitar player andmusician of Indian descent,[3][4] as well as an occasionalwriter andactress. She performs across multiple genres and styles—classical and contemporary, acoustic andelectronic.[5][6] In addition to releasing seven solo studio albums beginning withAnoushka (1998), she has also worked alongside a wide variety of musicians, includingKarsh Kale on the full-length collaborationBreathing Under Water (2007) and her fatherRavi Shankar. She has received fourteen[7]Grammy Awards nominations and was the first musician of Indian origin to perform live and to serve as a presenter at the ceremony.[8]
Shankar was born inLondon, and her childhood was divided between London andDelhi. She is the daughter ofTamil mother Sukanya Rajan andBengali father and sitar maestroRavi Shankar, who was 61 when she was born.[9] Through her father, she is also the half-sister of American singerNorah Jones (born Geetali Norah Shankar) andShubhendra "Shubho" Shankar, who died in 1992.
As a teenager, Shankar lived inEncinitas, California, and attendedSan Dieguito High School Academy. A 1999 honors graduate and homecoming queen, she pursued a career in music rather than attending college.[10]
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Shankar began training on the sitar with one of her father's disciples, Gaurav Mazumdar, at the age of eight.[11] As part of her training, she began accompanying her father on thetanpura at his performances from the age of ten. She gave her first public sitar performance on 27 February 1995, aged 13, atSiri Fort in New Delhi as part of her father's 75th birthday celebration concert. For this solo debut, she was accompanied by tabla maestroZakir Hussain.[12] Her first experience in the recording studio came that same year when Angel Records released a special four-CD box set calledIn Celebration, to mark her father's birthday. By the age of 14, she was accompanying her father at concerts around the world. At 15, she assisted her father on the landmark albumChants of India, produced byGeorge Harrison. Under both their guidance, she was in charge of notation and eventually of conducting the performers who took part in the recording. After this experience, the heads ofAngel Records came to her parents' home to ask to sign her, and Shankar signed her first exclusive recording contract with Angel/EMI when she was 16.
She released her first album,Anoushka, in 1998, followed byAnourag in 2000. In 1999 Shankar graduated from high school with honours, but decided against university in favour of touring as a solo artist. Both Shankar and her half-sister Norah Jones were nominated forGrammy awards in 2003, when Shankar became the youngest nominee in the World Music category for her third album,Live at Carnegie Hall.
Having released three albums ofIndian classical music, Shankar took several years away from recording and focused her energy on establishing herself as a solo concert performer outside of her father's ensemble. In that time, she toured worldwide, playing an average of 50–60 concerts per year. 2005 brought the release of her fourth album,RISE, her first self-produced, self-composed, non-classical album, earning her another Grammy nomination in theBest Contemporary World Music category. In February 2006, she became the first Indian to play at the Grammy Awards, playing material fromRISE.
Shankar, in collaboration with Indian producer, composer and musicianKarsh Kale, releasedBreathing Under Water on 28 August 2007. It is a mix of classical sitar andelectronica beats and melodies. Notable guest vocals included her half-sister Norah Jones,Sting, and her father, who performed a sitar duet with her.
In 2011, Shankar signed with record labelDeutsche Grammophon as an exclusive artist. This marked the beginning of a prolific recording and creative period for Shankar, during which time she continued to refine the sitar sound and musical ideas she had become known for. She earned a third Grammy Award nomination in 2013 forTraveller, an exploration of the shared history betweenflamenco and Indian classical music, which was produced byJavier Limón and featured artists such asBuika,Pepe Habichuela andDuquende. As Shankar had begun to do withRISE, she created a specially handpicked ensemble of musicians with whom to perform this cross-genre music, and played more than a hundred concerts worldwide in support ofTraveller. In 2013, she released a personal album calledTraces of You, which was released several months after the death of her father. Produced byNitin Sawhney, and featuring her half-sister Norah Jones as the sole vocal performer,Traces of You earned Shankar a fourth Grammy nomination in the World Music category. In July 2015, Shankar releasedHome, her first purely classical album of Indianragas. Self-composed and produced,Home was recorded over a week in October 2014 in Shankar's new, purpose-built home-studio.
FollowingHome, Shankar releasedLand of Gold (2016) – her fourth album withDeutsche Grammophon.[13] The release featured different types of contributions – from the vocal of MIA and Alev Lenz, to the monologue of "Remain the Sea" by veteran British actressVanessa Redgrave.[14] There is also a strong cinematic influence in the videos, lent by the production of film directorJoe Wright.Land of Gold remixes came out in the same year with remixes by Mowgli,Karsh Kale, Matt Robertson, Grain and East London-based collective Shiva Soundsystem.
Anoushka discusses her awesome work around the UK-India Year Of Culture, and visitingBuckingham Palace in aBBC Radio interview with Ashanti Omkar on 02 April 2017.[15]
In 2019, came the compilationReflections, a 20-year retrospective album that revisits the best of Shankar's cross-cultural back catalogue with Deutsche Grammophon, including many of her previous collaborations with fellow artists and producers.[16]
The release ofLove Letters in 2020 marked a different direction for Shankar. The co-produced EP is a compilation of songs written across 2018–19 and released on her new record label,Mercury KX.[17][18] Several guest musicians feature on the EP, including singer and co-producerAlev Lenz, twin sister vocal duoIbeyi, singer and cellistAyanna Witter-Johnson, Indian singerShilpa Rao, Brooklyn-based mastering engineer Heba Kadry (Björk,Slowdive) and British audio mastering engineerMandy Parnell (Aphex Twin,The XX).[19]
Shankar regularly collaborates with electronic music producerGold Panda, percussionistManu Delago and theBritten Sinfonia strings, all of which appeared, including Shankar, at the 2020BBC Proms at theRoyal Albert Hall.[20]
Throughout her career, Shankar has made many guest appearances on recordings by other artists, among them Sting,Lenny Kravitz,Thievery Corporation and Nitin Sawhney.
In 2010, she collaborated with Jazz legendHerbie Hancock, on his albumThe Imagine Project, alongsidePink,India.Arie,Jeff Beck,John Legend,Chaka Khan,The Chieftains,Wayne Shorter andDave Matthews. The project was also filmed for a documentary accompanying the release and showing him working with the artists who collaborated on the project.[21]
In 2005, she featured on the track "Rebirth" by Indian fusion groupMIDIval Punditz. In 2012, the albumArea 52 byRodrigo & Gabriela featured a guest appearance from Shankar's sitar improvisation.[22] She performed theRaga Piloo with violinistPatricia Kopatchinskaja during a concert inKonzerthaus Berlin, Germany in April 2016; the song was originally composed, performed and recorded by Ravi Shankar as a duet withYehudi Menuhin on the albumWest Meets East, Volume 2 in 1968.
More recently, she has played on the track "Ama La" on theDalai Lama's first music album,Inner World, which was released in July 2020 on his 85th birthday.[23]
Shortly afterwards, she appeared onPeradam, the third and final instalment of album trilogyPerfect Vision byPatti Smith andSoundwalk Collective alongsideCharlotte Gainsbourg, andTenzin Choegyal; she also collaborated with Grammy-nominatedDeva Premal on the song "Prabhujee", released in November 2020.
On 13 November 2020, Shankar was featured on "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" as part of the BBC Radio 2's Allstars'Children in Need charity single.[24] The single debuted at number 7 on the Official UK Singles Chart[25] and number 1 on both the Official UK Singles Sales Chart and the Official UK Singles Download Chart.[26]
Shankar has continued to tour and perform as a classical sitarist, both within purely Indian classical ensembles but also as a soloist championing her father's compositions with the world's leading orchestras including theLondon Symphony Orchestra,New York Philharmonic,Berliner Philharmoniker,MDR Sinfonieorchester,Metropole Orkest andLucerne Symphony Orchestra.[27][28][20]
Shankar is the sole performer of Ravi Shankar's First and Second Concertos for Sitar and Orchestra since his death, performing multiple times under the leadership of esteemed conductors such asZubin Mehta,Jules Buckley,Kristjan Järvi, and Jakob Hrusa. In January 2009, she was the sitar soloist alongside theOrpheus Chamber Orchestra premiering her father's Third Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra, and in July 2010 she premiered Ravi Shankar's first symphony for sitar and orchestra with theLondon Philharmonic Orchestra at London'sRoyal Festival Hall.
On 4 November 2012, Shankar performed with father Ravi during his final concert, at theTerrace Theater in Long Beach, California. He died five weeks later in San Diego.
She has also performed in duets with artists such as violinistJoshua Bell, in a sitar-cello duet withMstislav Rostropovich, and with flutistJean-Pierre Rampal, playing both sitar and piano.
Shankar took her first steps into scoring with a Bengali lullaby composed for director Joe Wright'sAnna Karenina (2012), starringKeira Knightley,Jude Law andTannishtha Chatterjee.[29]
Shankar's progression into composition for films led her to score theBritish Film Institute's restoration of a rare Indian silentShiraz: A Romance of India (original 1928, scored in 2017). She also performed the composition live at screenings of the movie that premiered at 2017'sLondon Film Festival Archive Gala and then appeared at the global film festival We Are One on 2 June 2020.[30]
In the same year (2017), she co-wrote and performed on the end-title song "Gain the Ocean" for theJudi Dench-starred British-American biographical dramaVictoria & Abdul directed byStephen Frears.[31]
More recently, she co-composed the score toMira Nair's (Monsoon Wedding,Vanity Fair,The Namesake) BBC six-part seriesA Suitable Boy (2020); based onVikram Seth's classicnovel of the same title, the show developed byAndrew Davies (Bridget Jones's Diary,War & Peace,Les Misérables) starsTabu,Tanya Maniktala andIshaan Khatter.[32]
Shankar has also ventured into acting (Dance Like a Man, 2004) and writing. She wrote a biography of her father,Bapi: The Love of My Life, in 2002 and has contributed to various books. As a columnist, she wrote monthly columns for India'sFirst City Magazine for three years, and spent one year as a weekly columnist for India's second-largest newspaper, theHindustan Times.[citation needed]
She narratedStolen Innocence: India's Untold Story of Human Trafficking, a 2017 documentary by filmmakers Chris Davis, Casey Allred and Lindsay Daniels, telling the true stories of young women who escaped fromsex slavery in India and Nepal.[33]
Over the span of her musical career, Shankar has frequently been invited to perform for benefit concerts around the world.
In 2000, she shared the stage withMadonna andBryan Adams at the Summer's Tibetan Peace Garden Benefit concert organised in London bySting's wife,Trudie Styler;[34] on 29 November 2002, Shankar was the featured performer of the "Indian" half of theConcert for George, a posthumous tribute to the life and music ofGeorge Harrison, held at theRoyal Albert Hall in London. She opened the show by playing a solo sitar instrumental titled "Your Eyes". Also on the sitar, she performed George Harrison's "The Inner Light" withJeff Lynne. Lastly, she conducted a new composition,Arpan, written by her father. The composition featuredEric Clapton playing acoustic guitar, and a full orchestra of Indian and Western musicians. The concert was modelled after Ravi Shankar's benefit concert with Harrison, the 1971Concert for Bangladesh.
Also in 2002, she performed alongsidePatti Labelle,Elton John,Nina Simone and others forRock for the Rainforest, the benefit concert organized by Sting andTrudie Styler atCarnegie Hall.[35]
Shankar was invited byRichard Gere andPhilip Glass to perform in a concert atAvery Fisher Hall in 2003 in aid of theHealing the Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation.[citation needed]
Shankar andJethro Tull postponed a concert scheduled for 29 November 2008 in Mumbai after the2008 Mumbai attacks. They reorganised the performance asA Billion Hands Concert, a benefit performance for victims of the attacks, and held it on 5 December 2008.[36]
In 2016, Shankar helped gather names and signed a letter to the Guardian for a call for action to help Syrian refugees.[37]
In February 2018, she read a poem as part of Letters Live for Help Refugees, alongside other performers such asGemma Arterton,Andrew Scott,Jade Anouka,Cara Theobold,Florence Welch,Chiwetel Ejiofor, andJoely Richardson, among many others.[citation needed]
In July 2018, Shankar embarked on a short US tour ofLand of Gold to help raise funds for the nonprofit organizationHelp Refugees.[38]
Shankar is an activist working with multiple causes and charitable organisations, in particular supporting women and refugees; she is also an advocate for animal rights.
One Billion Rising
In 2013, responding to the horrific gang-rape of a young girl in Delhi, whom the Indian media referred to asNirbhaya, Shankar threw her weight behind an online campaignOne Billion Rising on Change.org,[52] demanding an end to crime against women.[53] As part of the campaign, she released a video in which she revealed she had been sexually abused for many years as a child.[54]
UNHCR – The UN Refugee Agency
In 2018, she joined musicians, actors and artists such asPatrick Stewart,Peter Capaldi,Vivienne Westwood,Anish Kapoor,The Kaiser Chiefs and many others in a call to urgeMPs to attend the Refugees Family Reunion Bill and ensure refugee families torn apart by war and conflict are reunited.[55]
Help Refugees
Shankar is one of the faces of the Help Refugees campaign to raise funds and awareness for the refugee crisis worldwide.[37]
The F-List
In 2020, Shankar was announced as the inaugural President of the F-List: a UK database created to help bridge the gender gap in music.[56]
Pin Your Thanks
In 2020, Shankar designed a pin for the "Pin Your Thanks" initiative that supports theNational Health Service (NHS) charities during theCOVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.[57]
The Walk
Shankar is an ambassador for The Walk, an international artistic project in support of refugees.[58]
UN World Food Programme
In 2007, the UNWorld Food Programme appointed Shankar as spokesperson to raise awareness about the issues of hunger and malnutrition, especially among children, in India.[59]
PETA
Shankar and her father, also a supporter of animal rights, appeared in a 30-second public-service announcement against animal suffering forPeople for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).[60]
Artists4Ceasfire
In October 2023, Shankar signed theArtists4Ceasefire open letter toJoe Biden,President of the United States, calling for a ceasefire in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.[61]
In 2010, she married British directorJoe Wright.[62] They have two sons (born 2011 and 2015). They separated in December 2017 and finalised their divorce in September 2019. Shankar lives in London with her sons.[63]
| Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FRA [64] | SPA [65] | SWI [66] | US [67] | US Heat. [68] | US World [69] | ||
| Anoushka |
| — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Anourag |
| — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Rise |
| — | — | — | — | 29 | 2 |
| Breathing Under Water (withKarsh Kale) |
| 177 | — | — | — | 40 | 6 |
| Traveller |
| 144 | 62 | — | — | 4 | 2 |
| Traces of You |
| 190 | 90 | 77 | 185 | 4 | 1 |
| Home |
| — | — | — | — | — | 3 |
| Land of Gold |
| — | — | — | — | — | 5 |
| Chapter I: Forever, For Now |
| ||||||
| Chapter II: How Dark It Is Before Dawn |
| ||||||
| Chapter III: We Return to Light |
| ||||||
| "—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. | |||||||
| Year | Title | Role | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Dance Like a Man | Lata | [70][71] |
Sitar virtuoso Anoushka Shankar — the first Indian woman and youngest-ever Grammy nominee in the world music category
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| Film scores | Avijatrik (2014) |
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