Friday, September 27, 2013
ANOUSHKA SHANKAR (born 9 June1981) is an Indian sitar player
and composer, and daughter of Ravi Shankar.
Anoushka
Shankar was born in London into a Bengali-Tamil Hindu family, and her childhood
was divided between London and Delhi. She is a daughter of Indian sitar
player Ravi Shankar and Sukanya Shankar. She is also the paternal
half-sister of American singer Norah Jones, andShubhendra
"Shubho" Shankar, who died in 1992.
As
a teenager, she lived in Encinitas, California and attended San
Dieguito Academy. A 1999 honors graduate, Shankar then decided to pursue a
career in music rather than attend college.
Anoushka
Shankar began training on the sitar with her father as a child, with practice
consisting of just a couple of sessions a week at the age of ten. Shankar gave
her first public performance at the age of 13 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.
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 her 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 included her paternal half-sister Norah
Jones, Sting, and her father, who performed a sitar duet with her.
Shankar
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 Shankar has collaborated with Herbie Hancock on
his latest record The Imagine Project.
Shankar
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.
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 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.
Shankar
recorded her following album in Madrid, Spain. Released in autumn
2011, Traveller is an exploration of the commonalities and
differences between classical Indian music and Spanishflamenco, and
features Shubha Mudgal, Tanmoy Bose, Pepe Habichuela, Sandra
Carrasco and Duquende among others.
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 Claptonplaying 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."
Shankar
lives between the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. She is married
to British director Joe Wright and their first child, Zubin Shankar
Wright, was born on 22 February 2011.
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