1. Anoushka Hemangini Shankar was born on 9 June 1981 and is a British-American sitar player and musician of Indian descent, as well as occasional writer.
29 Facts About Anoushka Shankar
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Anoushka Shankar has received eleven Grammy Awards nominations and was the first musician of Indian origin to perform live and to serve as a presenter at the ceremony.
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Anoushka Shankar was the youngest and first woman to receive a British House of Commons Shield.
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Anoushka Shankar began training on the sitar with one of her father's disciples, Gaurav Mazumdar, at the age of eight.
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Anoushka Shankar gave her first public sitar performance on 27 February 1995 at the age of 13, at Siri Fort in New Delhi as part of her father's 75th birthday celebration concert.
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Anoushka Shankar released her first album, Anoushka, in 1998, followed by Anourag in 2000.
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In 1999 Anoushka Shankar graduated from high school with honours, but decided against university in favour of touring as a solo artist.
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In 2011 Anoushka Shankar signed with record label Deutsche Grammophon as an exclusive artist.
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Anoushka Shankar earned a third Grammy Award nomination in 2013 for Traveller, an exploration of the shared history between flamenco and Indian classical music, which was produced by Javier Limon and featured artists such as Buika, Pepe Habichuela and Duquende.
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In July 2015 Anoushka Shankar released Home, her first purely classical album of Indian ragas.
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Anoushka Shankar performed the Raga Piloo with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja during a concert in Konzerthaus Berlin, Germany in April 2016; the song was originally composed, performed and recorded by Ravi Shankar as a duet with Yehudi Menuhin on the album West Meets East, Volume 2 in 1968.
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On 13 November 2020, Anoushka Shankar was featured on "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" as part of the BBC Radio 2's Allstars' Children in Need charity single.
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Anoushka Shankar has continued to tour and perform as a classical sitarist, both within purely Indian classical ensembles but as a soloist championing her father's compositions with the world's leading orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Berliner Philharmoniker, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Metropole Orkest and Lucerne Symphony Orchestra.
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On November 4,2012, Anoushka Shankar performed with father Ravi during his final concert, at the Terrace Theater in Long Beach, California.
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Anoushka Shankar has performed in duets with artists such as violinist Joshua Bell, in a sitar-cello duet with Mstislav Rostropovich, and with flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, playing both sitar and piano.
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Anoushka Shankar took her first steps into scoring with a Bengali lullaby composed for director Joe Wright's Anna Karenina, starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law and Tannishtha Chatterjee.
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Anoushka Shankar performed the composition live at screenings of the movie that premiered at 2017's London Film Festival Archive Gala and then appeared at the global film festival We Are One on 2 June 2020.
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Anoushka Shankar has ventured into acting and writing.
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Anoushka Shankar wrote a biography of her father, Bapi: The Love of My Life, in 2002 and has contributed to various books.
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In 2000 she shared the stage with Madonna and Bryan Adams at the Summer's Tibetan Peace Garden Benefit concert organised in London by Sting's wife Trudie Styler; on 29 November 2002, Anoushka Shankar was the featured performer of the "Indian" half of the Concert for George, a posthumous tribute to the life and music of George Harrison, held at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
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Anoushka Shankar opened the show by playing a solo sitar instrumental titled "Your Eyes".
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Anoushka Shankar was invited by Richard Gere and Philip Glass to perform in a concert at Avery Fisher Hall in 2003 in aid of the Healing the Divide: A Concert for Peace and Reconciliation.
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In 2016 Anoushka Shankar helped gather names and signed Letter to the Guardian for a call for action to help Syrian refugees.
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Anoushka Shankar is an activist working with multiple causes and charitable organisations, in particular supporting women and refugees; she is an advocate for animal rights.
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Anoushka Shankar is one of the faces of the Help Refugees campaign to raise funds and awareness for the refugee crisis worldwide.
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In 2020 Anoushka Shankar was announced as the inaugural President of the F-List: a UK database created to help bridge the gender gap in music.
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In 2020 Anoushka Shankar designed a pin for the "Pin Your Thanks" initiative that supports the National Health Service charities during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
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Anoushka Shankar is an ambassador for The Walk, an international artistic project in support of refugees.
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Artists4Ceasfire In October 2023, Anoushka Shankar signed the Artists4Ceasefire open letter to Joe Biden, President of the United States, calling for a ceasefire in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.