Biography

To read a list of sitarist and composer Anoushka Shankar’s accomplishments is to read many life stories in one: prolific 11-time Grammy®-nominated recording artist; touring veteran; film composer; artistic curator; published author; impassioned activist. Anoushka was the youngest and first female recipient of a British House of Commons Shield at the age of eighteen; an Ivor Novello Award-nominee for her A Suitable Boy soundtrack; an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music; the first Indian musician to perform live or serve as presenter at the Grammy® Awards, and the first Indian woman ever nominated; one of the first five female composers to have been added to the UK A-level music syllabus; and most recently, in June 2024, the recipient of an Honorary Degree in Music from Oxford University.

Anoushka is currently celebrating thirty years of global touring since her prodigious debut at the age of thirteen. She began studying the sitar and Indian classical music under the intensive tutelage of her father, Pandit Ravi Shankar, learning by ear not only the musical tradition that has been passed on through generations but also the improvisatory freedom for which her father was so renowned. A love of this creative freedom has drawn her across borders and timelines to collaborate with a mind-bogglingly diverse array of artists including Herbie Hancock, Patti Smith, Sting, Zubin Mehta, Joshua Bell, Arooj Aftab, Jacob Collier, Nils Frahm, M.I.A, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and her half-sister Norah Jones. Her versatility is built from years honing her craft on stages from legendary jazz cafes to iconic symphony halls and festivals of 40,000 people, playing with venerable orchestras and ever-changing band formations, expanding the confidence to be artistically truthful and to connect to her audience from the heart.

Anoushka most recently released Chapter III: We Return to Light, the final part of a trilogy of mini-albums, and was Guest Director of Brighton Festival 2025. She is a singular, genre-defying artist known for breaking new ground across realms, with a boundless commitment to forging connection, hope and peace through music.

Anoushka’s foray into film composition began with the British Film Institute’s restoration of Shiraz, one of the first major Indian silent feature films, later performing the soundtrack live in sync to the film. Following that, she co-composed the score to Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy, creating a sonic portrait of post-partition India that went on to be nominated for Best Television Soundtrack at the Ivor Novello awards.

A tireless activist who has worked frequently with organisations such as the UNHCR and Choose Love, for whom she is now an official Ambassador, Anoushka’s commitment to humanitarian work deepened in 2012 following the news of a horrific attack on a woman in India that shook the world. Since then, she has been outspoken about her experiences as a woman and a survivor of child abuse, throwing her weight behind campaigns such as One Billion Rising, becoming inaugural President of the F-List: a UK database created to help bridge the gender-gap in music, and an Ambassador for The Walk, an international artistic project in support of refugees. Her commitment to raising her voice is just as clear in her music–in 2022 she released ‘In Her Name’, a piece written in remembrance of Jyoti Singh, and all women who have suffered violence–as it is in her online presence, where, in her typically confessional manner, she regularly discusses her own experiences.

All of this speaks to a rare breed of artist; one who can balance many lives in one, each one as natural as the next. Anoushka’s tempests of sound present ancient instruments in modern light, not as exotic set pieces, but as living, breathing, and wildly expressive, full-bodied gifts to this world. Every note played comes from the soul, “playing to connect to the innermost part of myself and hopefully the listener, evoking empathy or a feeling of hope…you have to believe you might make a difference in order to bother trying”.