Anoushka Shankar

All Music Guide:

The daughter of sitar legend Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar began studying under her father at age nine, making her performing debut four years later. Appearing alongside her father as he toured the world, she appeared at Carnegie Hall while still in her teens, and also performed with Peter Gabriel's WOMAD festival. She was the youngest and only female recipient of the House of Commons Shield awarded by British Parliament "in recognition of her artistry and musicianship -- as a pre-eminent musician of the Asian Arts." Shankar made her solo debut with 1998's Anoushka, released when she was still just 17 years old. Anourag followed two years later. The young prodigy added another triumph to her already impressive career in 2001 with her Live at Carnegie Hall album. The fusion- and worldbeat-inspired Rise arrived in 2005, followed by Karsh Kale: Breathing Under Water in 2007.

Wikipedia:

Anoushka Shankar (born 9 June 1981) is a British Indian sitar player and composer who lives between the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. She is the daughter of Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar and Sukanya Shankar. She is the paternal half-sister of Norah Jones.

Personal life and education

Shankar was born in London and divided her childhood between London and Delhi. As a teenager, she lived in Encinitas, California and attended San Dieguito Academy. A 1999 Honors graduate, Shankar decided to pursue a career in music rather than attend college.

Anoushka married British director Joe Wright. Their first child, Zubin Shankar Wright, was born on 22 February 2011.

Career

Shankar began training on the sitar with her father as a child, and gave her first public performance at the age of thirteen at Siri Fort in New Delhi. By the age of fourteen, she was accompanying her father at concerts around the world, and signed her first record contract, with Angel Records (EMI) at 16.

Though success came at an early age for Shankar, she was still uncertain if music was the career she wanted to fully pursue. "The question was continually back and forth in my mind," she admits. "After I graduated from high school, I made a decision not to go to college and start touring full-time. Even at that time, I thought maybe I’d do it for a year and see what happens. During that year, it became so clear to me that that was my life and who I was– a touring musician."

She released her first album, Anoushka, in 1998, followed by Anourag in 2000. Both Shankar and Norah Jones were nominated for Grammy awards in 2003 when Anoushka became the youngest-ever and first woman nominee in the World Music category for her third-album, Live at Carnegie Hall.

2005 brought the release of Anoushka’s fourth album RISE, earning her another Grammy nomination in the Best Contemporary World Music category. In February 2006 she became the first Indian to play at the Grammy Awards.

Shankar, in collaboration with Karsh Kale, released Breathing Under Water on 28 August 2007. It is a mix of classical sitar and electronica beats and melodies. Notable guest vocals include Norah Jones, Sting, and Ravi Shankar who performs a sitar duet with his daughter.

Anoushka has made many guest appearances on recordings by other artists, among them Sting, Lenny Kravitz and Thievery Corporation. Duetting with violinist Joshua Bell, in a sitar-cello duet with Mstislav Rostropovich, and with flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal, playing both sitar and piano. Most recently Anoushka has collaborated with Herbie Hancock on his latest record The Imagine Project.

Anoushka has given soloist performances of her father's 1st Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra worldwide. In January 2009 she was the sitar soloist alongside the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra for the series of concerts premièring her father’s 3rd Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra, and in July 2010 she premiered Ravi Shankar's first Symphony for Sitar and Orchestra with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at London's Barbican Hall.

Anoushka 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 chapters to various books. As a columnist she wrote monthly columns for India's First City Magazine for three years, and spent one year as a weekly columnist for India's largest newspaper, the Hindustan Times.

Anoushka recorded her next album in Madrid, Spain. Released in autumn 2011 "Traveller" is an exploration of the commonalities and differences between classical Indian music and Spanish flamenco, and features the talents of Shubha Mudgal, Tanmoy Bose, Pepe Habichuela, Sandra Carrasco and Duquende among others.

Benefit concerts

On 29 November 2002, Anoushka Shankar was the opening act at the Concert for George, a posthumous tribute to the life and music of George Harrison, held at the Royal Albert Hall in London. She was the principal performer in the entire first set or "Indian portion" of the concert. 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" with Jeff Lynne (vocals and guitar). Lastly, she conducted a new composition, Arpan, written by her father. The composition featured Eric Clapton playing acoustic guitar. The concert was modelled after Ravi Shankar's benefit concert with Harrison, the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh.

Anoushka Shankar was invited by Richard Gere and Philip Glass to perform in a concert at the Avery Fisher Hall in 2003 in aid of the Healing the Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation. Shankar and Jethro Tull postponed a concert scheduled for 29 November 2008 in Mumbai after the 2008 Mumbai attacks. They reorganised the performance as A Billion Hands Concert, a benefit performance for victims of the attacks, and held it on 5 December 2008. Shankar commented on this decision stating that: "As a musician, this is how I speak, how I express the anger within me [...] our entire tour has been changed by these events and even though the structure of the concert may remain the same, emotionally perhaps we are saying a lot more."

Awards

Activism

Shankar is a supporter of animal rights and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). She and her father appeared in a thirty-second public-service announcement against animal suffering. Anoushka is also the spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Programme in India.