Classical Indian sitarist Anoushka Shankar and her group The Anoushka Shankar Project have been on their European tour since early November to promote a new album, Traveller, with the support of Deutsche Grammophon. Leading World Music artist, Anoushka is the half-sister of Jazz singer Norah Jones, and daughter of the legendary composer Ravi Shankar, who, since the 1960s and through collaborations with artists as diverse as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, virtuoso violinist Yehudi Menuhin and composer Philip Glass, popularised the sitar, a complex plucked stringed instrument used in Hindustani classical music.

Having the chance of being entirely trained by her father (and guru) since the age of nine, Anoushka started to perform with him at the early age of fourteen and later played his compositions, concertos and symphony for sitar and orchestra as a soloist. She made a name for herself by releasing Anoushka (1998), Anourag (2000), Live at Carnegie Hall (2003) and Breathing under water (2007).

The title of her latest album, Traveller, alludes to her own cosmopolitism but also to the Travellers, the gypsies who, in coming from Punjab in the first century AD, crossed Asia before settling in Europe and bringing us musical forms, which later evolved into the Spanish Flamenco. Anoushka recognized fascinating reminiscences of Indian music in Flamenco: similarities in the rhythmic approach and counting system but also in ‘strength’, as spirituality meets passion. Her CD is the result of a wonderful collaboration with famous Spanish composer, songwriter and record producer Javier Limón, whose musical heritage, a mixture of Rajasthani Gypsy, Christian, Jewish and Arabic influences, makes up contemporary Flamenco. Incidentally, the lyrics borrow elements of 13th/14th/15th Century Farsi poetry, while most of Anoushka’s songs were translated in Spanish or Hindi. Ravi Shankar, himself, wrote the lyrics to the song 'Krishna' in Bengali.

The fusion of the various instruments, the guitar, Spanish percussion and piano, which respond to the Indian sitar, tabla (percussion), tanpura (lute), and shehnai (oboe), offers a new musical experience as the stamping and clapping of a Flamenco dancer, corresponds to the ringing bells of an Indian one.

Spanish Flamenco and Jazz singer Concha Buika is among the numerous guest artists who participated in the creation of this rare and ambitious project, which was recorded between California, Spain, Britain and India.

Such a demanding repertoire needed meticulous adjustments to be performed live. Following the Hindustani tradition, Anoushka starts in solo by slowly introducing a raga or traditional melodic formula while improvising and reaching a peaceful state. The audience is progressively drawn in, and experiences the curiousness of pure sound. Gradually, the beat accelerates and we are rhythmically led into more familiar melodies like vivid Latin phrases, conveyed by the guitar, drums and the mystic Spanish lyrics. As the music evolves, a seduced audience, spellbound by the mood, catches itself dancing to the ever-lyrical beat. 

This month, Anoushka Shankar will be performing in Berlin, Dortmund, Lisbon, Barcelona and Tenerife.  She will appear live in Brussels at the Palais des Beaux-Arts on 9 December.

lkissa@neurope.eu