The sitar may have been her musical legacy, but at 26, Anoushka Shankar possesses a sound that is all her own

There’s no getting around the fact that your father is internationally known as the archetypal figure in Indian classical music.

Anoushka Shankar, daughter of legendary sitar master Ravi Shankar began playing her father’s signature instrument and studying intensively with him when she was only 7-years-old.

“Well I first began to play it because it was around,” Anoushka says candidly, laughing. “But I fell for it, I fell in love with it. There’s just a uniqueness to this instrument. The tonality of the sitar is different from any other stringed instrument and there’s something very seductive about that sound the more you hear it … It became so rewarding to play and I wanted to sound good and produce that beautiful, beautiful sound.”

Make no mistake though; Anoushka, now 26, is no torch bearer. As a musician and composer, Anoushka has distinguished herself musically from her father’s legacy, crafting with the sitar a distinctive sound that integrates the Eastern and Western musical themes she has internalized during a peripatetic life split between cities on two continents, including her birthplace, London, Encinitas and New Delhi.

While music generally serves as a source of inspiration for her as a composer, it’s often not the music itself that fuels her creativity.

“It’s the passion in people when they play—when you’re watching someone live who’s just completely lost in something,” she effuses. “To me it’s like taking humanity to new heights when someone’s really reaching this pinnacle.”

Anoushka’s solo debut album, Rise, earned her a Grammy nomination and introduced her as a prominent figure in contemporary world music. Her latest recording, Breathing Under Water, a collaboration with experimental/electronica artist Karsh Kale, is modern, sensuous and engaged, soliciting both emotional peaks and moments of deep and restful consciousness. It features guest vocals by Shankar’s half-sister, jazz-pop chanteuse Norah Jones, and Sting.

A recurring presence in the record’s tracks is a sense of urban isolation that is a constant reality for its creators.

“We’re traveling musicians,” Anoushka says, estimating that she spends an average of only four to six consecutive weeks in one of her two homes each year. “We’re away from people we love. We’re constantly dealing with these feelings of longing and loss.”

Still, much of the time Anoushka spends touring, she gets to be with at least one person she loves intensely, her father. Such will be the case when the two perform here in Santa Cruz this Saturday.

“When I’m playing with my father, it’s not about me so much,” Anoushka says. “I get to think in a very different way as a musician. It’s about how to enhance what he’s doing. And it’s a really amazing brain exercise too because when we play, it’s all improvised. So there’s this real process of wrapping my brain around his in a way.”

Anoushka is not shy in expressing her reverence for her father, her discussion of his impact on her as a teacher and musician colored by unapologetic awe. She continues to learn from him and says that even after 13 years of performing together, they still conduct lessons on the road.

“There’s this concept of being a true artist that I’ve seen in him,” she says. “In the world, we can place him as a pinnacle in Indian classical music or a pioneer in this, all of that. But being around him, it’s not even humility per say, but he’s so genuinely on a path musically that where he is, is just so many leagues ahead of me. He’s still looking forward and seeing how much he can learn and how much he can grow.”

When asked what she may have taught him in so many years as his protégé, Anoushka takes a moment to reflect before answering.

“I wouldn’t say it’s teaching, but there’s a concept of inspiring each other where that’s not just going one way … There’s a real sort of sharing process that happens, especially more so in the last few years.”

Bookmark

E-mail This

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Write comment

Name

E-mail

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via e-mail (Registered users only)

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment