Anoushka Shankar

A virtuosic sitarist and composer with an inventive outlook, Anoushka Shankar inherited technical mastery of the instrument from her late father, the Indian classical icon Ravi Shankar, yet forged a distinct trajectory blending longstanding Indian traditions with forward-thinking global sounds. She first demonstrated exceptional promise during adolescence by issuing a sequence of traditional-leaning recordings on Angel Records in the opening years of the 2000s, then ventured into bolder territory via the Grammy-nominated 2005 album Rise. In subsequent projects her emphasis shifted toward original compositions and partnerships spanning pop, jazz, electronic, and flamenco realms. After joining Deutsche Grammophon in the following decade, she pursued innovative directions on the acclaimed 2011 release Traveller while also acknowledging her classical heritage through 2013’s Traces of You, a project on which she and her half-sister, the pop and jazz singer Norah Jones, paid tribute to their father soon after his passing. Shankar unveiled Home in 2015, presenting two classic ragas written by Ravi Shankar, then returned to cross-genre electronics with Land of Gold a year later. In 2020 she teamed with composer Alex Heffes and vocalist Kavita Seth to create the score for Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy, additionally issuing the Love Letters EP and its follow-up Love Letters PS twelve months afterward.

Born in England, she divided her childhood between London and Delhi before moving to California for high school. Beginning sitar lessons with her father at age nine, she made her concert debut four years later during his 75th-birthday celebration in Delhi. Touring alongside him exposed her to international stages while still a teenager, including appearances at Carnegie Hall, a performance at Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD festival, and a recording session with George Harrison. She became the youngest and sole female recipient of the House of Commons Shield, presented by British Parliament “in recognition of her artistry and musicianship—as a preeminent musician of the Asian Arts.”

After securing a deal with EMI’s Angel Records imprint, Shankar launched her recording career at seventeen with the 1998 album Anoushka. Two years later she followed with Anourag, which contained six ragas shaped by her father. Her 2001 album Live at Carnegie Hall added another milestone, rendering her the youngest artist and first woman nominated for Best World Music Album at the Grammys. Breaking from the strictly classical approach of prior works, the self-produced Rise incorporated pop, jazz, and multicultural elements while earning a second Grammy nomination. That fusion impulse persisted on the 2007 album Breathing Under Water, a joint effort with British producer and musician Karsh Kale that also included contributions from her father, half-sister Norah Jones, Sting, and Indian slide-guitar master V.M. Bhatt.

Traveller, an exploration of connections between Indian classical music and Spanish flamenco, arrived in 2011 as her first Deutsche Grammophon release. The only symphony composed by Ravi Shankar was captured by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under David Murphy and issued in 2012, with Anoushka featured as solo sitarist. In autumn 2013, mere months after her father’s death, she delivered the intimate Traces of You, a set of original pieces that garnered another Grammy nomination and became her first number-one entry on Billboard’s World Music chart. The 2015 collection Home presented a straightforward home-recorded selection of ragas written by her father. The following year she issued Land of Gold, a fervent reflection on global displacement caused by conflict, repression, and scarcity; produced by then-husband director Joe Wright, the album drew upon electronic producer Matt Robertson, singer/rapper M.I.A., cellist Caroline Dale, and actor/activist Vanessa Redgrave.

In 2019 director Mira Nair enlisted Shankar, composer Alex Heffes, and singer Kavita Seth to create the soundtrack for the television adaptation of Vikram Seth’s novel A Suitable Boy. Later that year, following her divorce from Wright, she released the song cycle Love Letters on Mercury KX. She extended the project in 2021, beginning with the single “Sister Susannah” on International Women’s Day and continuing with the seven-track Love Letters PS, which incorporated work from numerous female artists including Norah Jones, singer/songwriter Alev Lenz, singer/cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson, vocalist Shilpa Rao, poet Nikita Gill, plus mixing engineer Heba Kadry, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, and Sandunes.