Anoushka Shankar is a masterful sitar player, film composer and activist. Her music is genre-defying, combining classical with contemporary and acoustic with electronic. Shankar was the first Indian woman to be nominated for a Grammy Award® and has now accrued nine nominations.

Shankar began studying the sitar and Indian classical music under the instruction of her father, Pandit Ravi Shankar. She now returns to the International Festival with a new quintet of musicians to perform music from her recent mini-album alongside reinterpreted gems from her previous releases.

The quintet comprises clarinettist Arun Ghosh, drummer-composer Sarathy Korwar, Carnatic percussionist Pirashanna Thevarajah and bassist Tom Farmer. Representing the best of the thriving London music scene, each is a talented solo artist in their own right.

Shankar pioneers a new sound through inventive arrangements, sensitive virtuosity and a neoclassical approach to the music tradition to which she belongs.