13-Time Grammy Nominee Anoushka Shankar Talks Art, Freedom, & Impact

Anoushka Shankar has spent decades shaping how the world listens to the sitar. She is a musician raised in tradition and rooted in experimentation. With every performance, she bridges Indian classical music with global sounds, and she does it without letting go of the emotional clarity at the heart of her craft.

Her work has always held two parallel lines: deep artistic discipline and a public voice committed to justice, especially for women. This balance has made her one of the most respected musicians of her generation, both on stage and beyond it.

The Grammy Moment

Anoushka Shankar has been a regular presence at the Grammy Awards. She already had 11 nominations in her career. This year, she reached a new milestone. She earned two more nominations at the 2026 Grammys. That brings her total to 13 nominations.

She is nominated for Best Global Music Album for Chapter III: We Return To Light. The album is a collaboration with Alam Khan and Sarathy Korwar. It mixes sitar, sarod, percussion, and modern sounds. It stays rooted in classical music, but also experiments. Critics say the album blends tradition and new ideas with balance and care.

She is also nominated for Best Global Music Performance for Daybreak. The track is calm and thoughtful. It shows how soft, controlled playing can still carry deep emotion. It draws from morning ragas, but has a modern feel.

These nominations place her at a powerful moment in her career. Her legacy is already strong, and she continues to evolve. 

Life Beyond Awards

Anoushka Shankar’s public life has never been limited to stages and award nights. Her music and activism often move together.

In a previous conversation with SheThePeople, during her India visit around the tenth anniversary of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case, she spoke about how that moment reshaped her. That interview focused on women’s safety, artistic responsibility, and the emotional weight of returning to India after the pandemic.

“My life changed, indirectly but profoundly, because of what happened to Jyoti,” she said. She described the 2012 assault and death of Jyoti Singh, also known as Nirbhaya, as a turning point. It pushed her, like many women across the world, to speak more openly about gender-based violence, autonomy, and safety.

In that interview, she talked about how Indian classical music lives in two worlds at once. It is rooted in tradition, but alive through improvisation and constant reinvention. She said this quality lets it travel across borders, because audiences everywhere respond to emotion and spontaneity.

She also discussed her evolving performance style. Touring, she noted, lets her experiment. She works across genres, sometimes performing with orchestras, sometimes with electronic artists, always trying new forms while staying grounded in her classical training.

She had previously released In Her Name, a reimagined version of her 2013 track In Jyoti’s Name. The new version expanded its scope. It was not only about one brutal crime. It pointed to the wider reality that violence against women continues globally.

The piece featured poet Nikita Gill, whose spoken word underscored the ongoing struggle for safety and dignity. Shankar said the song marks grief, but also asks why women's freedom still feels fragile in many parts of the world.

She has been direct about the underlying issue. “If women are not treated as equals, their rights and safety will never be protected in the same way,” she said. For her, speaking about these subjects is not separate from making music. Both come from the same place: discipline, emotion, and a belief that culture can be a force for truth.