Anoushka Shankar
Sitar master Anoushka Shankar takes the stage April 18 at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center. Shankar and her family moved to Encinitas in the early 1990s, while her father Ravi Shankar worked as a professor of music and guest lecturer at SDSU. The elder Shankar frequently hosted musical collaborator and former Beatle George Harrison at their local home, where a sign was posted on the door reading “Please ring the bell only thrice. If no one opens the door, please leave your name and address...the door will not be opened on Mondays and Thursdays.” Inside, Ravi and his daughter Anoushka would spend those days immersed in devotional study of both the sitar and the history of Indian classical music, which Anoushka has gone on to master well enough to deftly fuse its rigorous adherence to tradition with freeform jazz and Spanish Flamenco music. A 1999 honor graduate of San Dieguito Academy in Encinitas, Anoushka Shankar’s most recent album, Land of Gold, reached number five on the U.S. World chart.
