The greatest sitar player who has become the icon of
world music
Based
on her firm roots in Indian traditional music, Anoushka Shankar has endlessly
expanded the horizon of world music through various musical endeavors. This
concert will be a precious opportunity to meet her musical world that has
continuously evolved between tradition and innovation for the past 20
years.
Since
the age of seven, Shankar learned music and sitar playing from her father Ravi
Shankar, a legendary sitar player. She began her solo career with the album
<Anoushka> in 1998 and with her live album <Live at Carnegie Hall>
released in 2003, she became the youngest-ever and the first Indian woman to be
nominated for Grammy Awards in the World Music section. In 2013, she released
the album <Trace of You> through Deutsche Grammophon, which topped the
Billboard World Music chart. The participation of Norah Jones—Shankar’s
stepsister—in the album also attracted heated attention. By presenting
collaborative stages with world-class musicians and conductors including George
Harrison, Eric Clapton, Sting, Philip Glass, Joshua Bell, Zubin Mehta, and
Kristjan Järvi, Shankar contributed heavily to the popularization of world
music.
The
performance at LG Art Center will be centered around her latest album <Land
of Gold>(2016). This album is a journey to the peaceful and safe land
everyone dreams of, the golden land. At the same time, the album embodies
Shankar’s message of hope, yearning for human dignity and love for mankind. The
mystic sound of the sitar will be accompanied by percussion, bass, and
Shehnai—a traditional Indian instrument similar to the Korean Taepyeongso.
Shankar and her band will leap beyond the chasm of time and space, leading you
to a pleasant state of peace at times, and at others, to the pure joy of life.