“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.”

British-American sitar player and musician, born 1981

Anoushka Shankar is a British-American sitar player and musician, with work as an occasional writer and actress. Born in 1981, she has built a career that spans classical and contemporary music, and both acoustic and electronic settings. She began releasing solo studio albums with Anoushka in 1998 and has since issued seven in all. She has also collaborated with a range of musicians, including Karsh Kale on Breathing Under Water in 2007 and her father, Ravi Shankar. Her career has brought her 14 Grammy Award nominations, and she was the first musician of Indian origin to perform live at the ceremony and to serve as a presenter there.