Grammy-nominated musician, composer and activist Anoushka Shankar is Guest Director for this year’s Brighton Festival, we caught up with her for a chat ahead of her appearance at The Dome on Sunday 25th of May
Anoushka Shankar’s many accomplishments include a series of notable firsts: with nine Grammy nominations under her belt, she was the first Indian musician to perform live and present at the Awards and the first Indian woman to be nominated. She was also the youngest and first female recipient of a British House of Commons Shield, recognising her as a pre-eminent musician of the Asian arts, and one of the first female composers to become part of the UK’s A-level music syllabus.
Brighton Festival, established in 1967, is the largest annual curated multi-arts festival in England. This year’s Festival will take place from 3-26 May and is a celebration of music, theatre, dance, art, film, literature, debate, outdoor and community events in venues and locations across Brighton, Hove and Sussex.
How has your upbringing and family background influenced your music and style? Where do I begin!? Truly, the influence of my parents on my love and respect for the sitar can’t be overstated. It was under my father’s guidance that I developed the deepest appreciation for Indian Classical music, and it was by his side that I made my professional debut at thirteen years old. My mother meanwhile was incredibly artistic herself and was central to helping me find my way onto a musical path. It’s true also that the places I’ve lived from London to Delhi to San Diego have each left their indelible mark. It’s this sense of place that influenced my very recently completed trilogy of mini-albums; the first springing from my home in London, recorded in Berlin, the second written and recorded in California and the third recorded in an Indian restaurant in London and conjuring memories of Trance epiphanies on the beaches of Goa. So many geographies, each of them unique, none less important than the other.
You often blend traditional Indian music with other genres. What inspires you to create these fusions, and how do you go about incorporating different musical styles? I began my journey deeply rooted in Indian classical music but as I grew, so did my desire to explore the full spectrum of my identity with influences far beyond the tradition laid out by my family. It was from that desire that I wrote Rise, my fourth but first self-composed and self-produced album, that blended classical sitar with ambient textures and electronic elements. It was the first time I truly felt I was speaking in my own musical language. Since then, I’ve continued to explore and experiment, combining ragas with everything from analogue synths and flamenco guitar to handpans and spoken word. Over the years, I’ve collaborated with artists like my dear sister Norah Jones, M.I.A., Sting, Patty Smith, and Herbie Hancock, each project offering itself up as a new way to push barriers. Whether it’s the raw emotion of Love Letters or the urgent message in Land of Gold, I find myself repeatedly searching for connection between people, traditions, and sound worlds.
You’ve collaborated with various artists across different genres. Can you share a memorable experience from one of these collaborations? Collaboration is the lifeblood of so much of my musical life. In a live setting, finding that weird mind-melding synchronicity with the other musicians onstage in the moments when it’s all totally gelling can be nothing short of euphoric. It’s a real joy, too, to bring people together in the studio. I’ve said it before but the desire to collaborate is often, for me, a similar feeling to a romantic attraction, there’s a magnetic quality to it, to being drawn to work with someone on a creative level. On this last mini-album, ‘Chapter III: We Return To Light’, I was lucky enough to be able to work with two dear friends: Sarathy Korwar, an incredible multi-instrumentalist and my band member with whom I’ve toured the world, and Alam Khan, a beautiful composer and sarod player who I’ve known since childhood, our fathers having both studied under Alam’s grandfather, Allauddin Khan. Sarathy will be playing with me in my show at Brighton Festival and is also producing his own musical event, Percussion Parade, working with 30 young musicians assembled by Create Music, to perform during a parade along Brighton Seafront. I can’t wait!
Who are some of your biggest musical influences, and how have they shaped your development as an artist? I’ll be forever grateful that my first influence was my father. He taught me technique, certainly, but also the great well of commitment needed to achieve anything like musical greatness. It was through him, too, that I got to know so many other extraordinary musicians from George Harrison to Philip Glass. To be performing ‘Passages’, Philip Glass and my father’s ground- breaking collaborative album, at this year’s Brighton Festival is a real full-circle joy. Elsewhere, I always feel compelled to mention Bjork, an artist as unique as she is fearless, whose capacity for imagination seems to know no bounds.
I’ve enjoyed working with Arooj Aftab. She and I have had a beautiful journey from when she was a young student at Berkeley College of Music and would come to my shows when I was in my early crossover days. We became friends, and we’d talk about my process and how I did stuff and then all these years later she’d come to a point when she was making music that I was finding really inspiring because she’s also found her own unique way of doing a similar thing. I invited her to produce ‘Ch I: Forever, For Now,’ the first part of my trilogy, and I’m thrilled she’ll also be performing at this year’s Festival.
Can you walk us through your creative process when composing new music? What do you find most challenging and most rewarding about it? My favourite way to compose is to bring as much of the feeling of live performance into the studio as possible. It’s not always practical, but to have other musicians in the room, to improvise and suggest things that I get to hear on the spot is the greatest joy. Of course a lot of the time it’s more likely that I’m alone with my instrument, pen and paper or computer, and only with musicians later, but I find that harder as I’m less naturally inspired that way.
You’ve been vocal about various social issues. How do you use your platform as an artist to raise awareness and effect change? It’s one of the great privileges of my life to have any kind of platform that enables me to raise my head above the parapet to speak about the issues that I feel need attention. I’ve been so lucky to be able to work with organisations like the UNHCR and Choose Love to raise awareness and much-needed funds where I can. There have also been times when I’ve been moved to respond to injustices through my music. In 2022 I released ‘In Her Name’, a piece written about violence against women. ‘Land of Gold’, too, was an album written in response to stories of refugees fleeing conflict zones, born out of a need to channel my outrage, compassion, and desire for change into music.
Are there any upcoming projects or collaborations that you’re particularly excited about? I’m so excited to kick the Festival off with Brown Girl in the Ring. Curated and produced by the brilliant Sweety Kapoor, and presented by Sweety and me, it promises to be a wild celebration of inspirational women including award-winning poets, actors, dancers, musicians and activists.
