Anoushka Shankar was born in London in 1981 as the second daughter of sitar player Ravi Shankar, who died in 2012. Raised by her mother, she only rarely saw her father as a young child. She commenced her musical studies at age 12, alternating between California and India, and meanwhile accompanying her father on tanpura in his line-ups. She gave her first solo sitar concert at age 13, backed up by tabla guru Zakir Hussain, and three years later would get to sign her first record contract for her album Anoushka. It wasn't just her father's classical sitar technique that she learned from her father: she also inherited his extraordinary openness. After her first three classical Indian records, she embraced the trend toward fusion, and in this spirit created her albums Rise and Breathing Under Water. Her collaborators included not only Ravi Shankar himself: Anoushka's half-sister, Norah Jones, whom she first met when she was 16, also joined in.
For Anoushka, the shared effect of classical and fusion Indian music is just as natural as the interweaving of Eastern and Western music. While her album Traveller delved into flamenco - focusing on the common story of Indian music and that of the Gypsies of Spain, the bluesy vocals of Norah Jones sharpened the impact of Traces of You, which as Anoushka's most personal album, reflected on the loss of her father. Featured on her album Home are classical Indian ragas, which she recorded in in her home studio in London, where she lives a happy family life with her film director husband and her son, Zubin. This year's Land of Gold, which she is bringing to Müpa Budapest, is constructed around the human tragedy of losing one's home and refugees fleeing from conflict and poverty.

Presented by: Müpa Budapest