Anoushka Shankar

“On 'Love Letters' I focused exclusively on sung music, creating a collection of songs that directly address heartbreak and its ensuing emotions in a way that instrumental music can only hint at.”

“I have been given something really, really special and really unique, and it is not just in and of itself having learned from my father, who is the greatest exponent of this musical style. But it is an oral tradition that is only generally passed on in that manner, and so without the people who continue to... learn it and perform it, it dies.”

“Even though my parents raised me in a very individualistic way, they were also strict and traditional, which was good. It was hard to sneak out! I think I was quite wild, but in some ways quite contained.”

“I've been to the Grammy's several times for my past nominations and it has always a fun experience.”

“Some of the more intensive scrutiny when I was first starting out definitely used to be tough to handle; I was only a teenager, yet was being analysed in newspapers world over, often by people who already had a strong opinion about my privilege before hearing me play.”

“I realised how rarely women are involved in all aspects of the music making, how rarely I've worked with female engineers. That became something that I started looking at as well. How many women can I bring into the project across the board.”

“Alchemy is one of the good quote-unquote south-Asian experiences in that it has a wide variety of classical to experimental music.”

“My parents were very unusual. They were pro-women and independence and they wanted me to have my own career. And because of my lineage, every door was opened for me.”

“As a musician, it's only natural that my music mirrors my life.”

“Usually, I really only look at any one particular album at a time when I'm making it. I've never really sat and looked at the journey through all of my albums to see if I could find a thread through them.”

“I love collaborations because they take your music in a different way.”

“The lockdown, in general, left me with a sense of needing to become more independent and instead of being intimidated, I decided to do the engineering on some of my new releases.”

“I work in the music world in a kind of very multi-faceted way. I work around the world, in different genres.”

“My father was a pioneer and a leader in the things he did and the way he did them.”

“The kind of love people in India shower on me is overwhelming.”

“The sitar is a really difficult instrument to play. Physically it's taxing because of the cross-legged sitting position, the length of the neck on the shoulder, the thinness of the strings. There's a lot of pain, especially at the start.”

“Music is my passion, it's my fun - but what's really important are the people I build a family with. That comes first.”

“In the last few years in particular, I've found that it's okay to let go of culture rather than hold on to it. And by letting go, you kind of realise that it's there anyway.”

“I do feel a commitment to this art form and to my father's teaching, and I think the older I get I'm feeling that more and more strongly.”

“I had multiple circles of friends around the world. Some circles were really wild and I was affectionately known by them as 'the nerdy one.' And, with other friends, I was regarded as the wild one.”