Richmond Symphony Presents MUSICAL CROSSROADS, Feat. Anoushka Shankar, Tonight

Richmond, Virginia Join the Richmond Symphony at the Carpenter Theatre at Richmond Center Stage tonight, April 26th at 7pm for a musical journey conducted by Steven Smith, featuring three-time Grammy Award nominated sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar! This concert is a celebration of the variety of international influences on classical music. Currently, this is Ms. Shankar's only East Coast performance scheduled for spring 2014.

Anoushka Shankar studied with her father, the legendary Ravi Shankar, from an early age. By thirteen, she had debuted professionally as a classical sitarist. She has had the honor of performing in many prestigious venues, including over a dozen performances at Carnegie Hall. Anoushka is one of the leading figures in World Music and the first Indian female and youngest-ever Grammy Award nominee in the World Music category.

After the concert, the Richmond Symphony is hosting a special dinner featuring a meet-and-greet with Anoushka at the Marriott. You can choose to add the dinner as an option when purchasing your tickets.

Adult tickets start at just $25 online at richmondsymphony.com or 1.800.514 ETIX. Adult tickets including the special meet-and-greet dinner start at $100.

This concert is co-presented by CenterStage Foundation and sponsored by Altria Group (concert sponsor), MeadWestvaco (concert sponsor) and RVA News (media sponsor).

About Anoushka Shankar: Sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar is one of the leading figures in World Music today. She is deeply rooted in the Indian classical music she studied exclusively from the age of nine under her father and guru, the legendary Ravi Shankar. In her twenties, after establishing herself as one of the foremost classical sitarists on the world's stage, she began thriving as a composer, exploring fertile ground in the crossover between Indian music and a variety of genres including flamenco, jazz, electronica and Western classical music. Among various accolades she has been thrice nominated for a Grammy® Award and was the youngest, and first female, recipient of a House of Commons Shield from the British House of Parliament in 1999. As a classical sitarist Anoushka Shankar debuted professionally at the age of thirteen and has performed in prestigious venues such as the Royal Albert Hall and Carnegie Hall (over a dozen times), and championed her father's orchestral works with the world's leading orchestras under conductors such as Zubin Mehta. Before turning twenty she made three classical sitar records for Angel/EMI under the guidance of her father, and received her first Grammy® nomination, thereby becoming the first Indian female and youngest-ever nominee in the World Music category.

In 2011 Anoushka signed to the prestigious classical music label Deutsche Grammophon, and released her sixth album, Traveller, a critically hailed exploration of Indian classical music and Spanish flamenco. This was the third in a series of breakthrough experimental albums from Anoushka, following 2005's self-produced and Grammy®-nominated Rise, and 2007's Breathing Under Water, a collaborative venture between Anoushka and multi-instrumentalist and composer Karsh Kale. In support of Traveller, Anoushka created an ensemble of flamenco and Indian musicians and went on tour, doing over ninety concerts presenting this new music across multiple continents. Traveller earned her a third Grammy® nomination and also a Songlines Best Artist award.

Now, in 2013, Anoushka releases Traces of You, having enlisted the help of multi-award-winning musician Nitin Sawhney to produce her music. As good friends they worked closely together, coaxing out some of the most intimate and daring music Anoushka has yet released. The music exists in an undefinable space between genres, always with the Indian music Anoushka loves so dearly at its roots. Traces of You features Anoushka's half-sister Norah Jones as the sole vocalist on several songs and showcases Anoushka's ever increasing versatility and lyricism on the sitar.

Over the years Anoushka has maintained creative careers outside of music: in 2002 she authored the book Bapi: The Love of My Life, a biographical portrait of her father, and she has served as regular columnist for New Delhi's First City magazine and the Hindustan Times. She also earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination from India's National Film Awards for her role in Dance Like a Man in 2004.

About the Richmond Symphony: Founded in 1957, the Richmond Symphony is the largest performing arts organization in Central Virginia. The organization includes an orchestra of more than 70 professional musicians, the 150-voice Richmond Symphony Chorus and more than 200 students in the Richmond Symphony Youth Orchestra programs. Each season, more than 250,000 members of the community enjoy concerts, radio broadcasts, and educational outreach programs. The Richmond Symphony is partially funded by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Today, from her home in London, where she lives with her husband and son, Anoushka's career reflects her aim to constantly learn and grow as an artist. As Nitin Sawhney has written, "No one embodies the spirit of innovation and experimentation more evidently than Anoushka Shankar."

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