Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka Shankar (born 9 June 1981) is an Indian sitar player and composer who lives between the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. She is the daughter of Ravi Shankar, legendary Indian sitar player, and Sukanya Shankar. Through her father, she is the 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, and is expecting their first child in the spring of 2011.

Career

Anoushka and Ravi Shankar in concert, 2005

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.

She released her first album, Anoushka, in 1998 followed by "Anourag" in 2000. Both Shankar and Norah 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 acclaimed 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 of 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 authored 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 is currently working on a new album in Madrid, Spain.

Benefit concerts

On 29 November 2002, she performed George Harrison's “The Inner Light” and conducted a new composition written by her father, Arpan, which featured Eric Clapton on solo guitar at the Concert for George held at the Royal Albert Hall in London. It was held in memory of George Harrison and was modeled 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 FOUNDATION: A CONCERT FOR PEACE AND RECONCILIATION. Shankar and Jethro Tull postponed a concert scheduled for 29 November 2008 in Mumbai [4] after the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. They reorganized the performance as A Billion Hands Concert, a benefit performance for victims of the attacks, and held it on 5 December 2008.[5] 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

* British House of Commons Shield, 1998
* Voted Homecoming Queen of San Dieguito High School, Class of 1999
* Woman of the Year (shared with Kareena Kapoor, Ritu Beri, and Rhea Pillai) awarded on International Women's Day 2003
* named as one of 20 Asian Heroes by the Asia edition of Time magazine in 2004

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 Program in India.


Discography
Studio albums

* Anoushka (1998)
* Anourag (2000)
* Live at Carnegie Hall (2001)
* Rise (2005)
* Rise (2006)
* Breathing Under Water (2007)

Live and compilations

* Full Circle: Live at Carnegie Hall- Ravi Shankar (2000)
* Concert for George (2003)
* Healing the Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation (2007)
* Live In Concert at the Nehru Park, New Delhi (2005)


Features

* Variant Moods - Duet For Sitar & Violin (Abridged Version) Written by Ravi Shankar, At Home With Friends by Joshua Bell 2009
* Charu Keshi Rain - Co-written by Nitin Sawhney and Anoushka Shankar, London Undersound 2008
* Mandala - Featuring Anoushka Shankar on sitar. Co-written by Hilton Garza, Radio Retaliation
* Beloved - by Anoushka Shankar remixed by Thievery Corporation - Versions 2006
* Rebirth - Co-written by Gaurav Raina, Tapan Raj and Anoushka Shankar. MIDIval Times 2005
* Sacred Love - by Sting 2003
* 8 classical ragas performed on ShankaRagamala composed by Ravi Shankar 2005
* Chants Of India - Ravi Shankar; George Harrison, Featuring Anoushka as Conductor & Assistant 1997
* Adarini - In Celebration composed by Ravi Shankar 1995

More about Anoushka Shankar


Anoushka Shankar Live at Verbier Festival - Mishra Pilu