appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Charmaine Yu

Sitarist and composer Anoushka Shankar’s latest work, Chapters – a deeply personal trilogy written and released between January 2023 and March 2025 – was born from an intense post-pandemic creative block.
“I had this notion that after the pandemic I needed to make the most significant work of my life,” Shankar says. “So, of course, as a result, I had nothing.”
The paralysis broke on a New Year’s morning in India. Staring at the ocean with her journal, she decided to strip away the pressure of a traditional album by breaking the music into three distinct chapters and collaborating with a different producer for each instalment to keep herself tethered to the present moment.
“Start with the first one, and let the first one lead you to the next,” was her motto.
On June 3, the 14-time Grammy-nominated sitar player and daughter of renowned Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar will perform her three Chapters albums – Forever, For Now; How Dark it is Before Dawn; and We Return to Light – in Hong Kong, with new orchestral arrangements alongside the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong and guest conductor Robert Ames.


A joint commission from the BBC Proms, her performance is set to combine the Indian traditions of the sitar with Western strings.
Although she remembers performing in Hong Kong as part of her father’s ensemble decades ago, her coming performance will be her first time headlining in the city.
Forever, For Now captures the fleeting moments of joy required to survive a painful life period. How Dark it is Before Dawn took her to California, where she looked to the womblike nature of the ocean to write an intimate soundtrack for inward healing. That metaphysical night gave way to We Return to Light, a rhythmic celebration that captures the heat and optimism of Indian sunlight.
“There was some painful stuff going on in life where I didn’t want to dig right into it – that felt too bold. So I just decided to write around it,” she says of her cathartic writing process.
She received two nominations for the 2026 Grammy Awards: one for best global music album for We Return to Light, and another for best global music performance for “Daybreak”, a song on that album. How Dark It Is Before Dawn received a nomination for the 2025 Grammys in the best new age, ambient or chant album category.

Performing such vulnerable material live night after night can be challenging for her.
“Sometimes I’m on stage years later playing a song and that period comes alive again. It’s not like going right back into depression, but there’s a little opening of something – there’s a twinge,” she says.
“And sometimes the same piece of music has [become] alive in its own way. I don’t need to go back to the event.”
For decades, conversations about Anoushka Shankar inevitably invoked the shadow of her father, who died in 2012. Ravi Shankar was a musical pioneer who introduced Indian classical music to the Western consciousness, even directly influencing The Beatles after teaching the sitar to guitarist George Harrison. The influence of Indian music is perhaps most salient in the band’s 1965 song “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”, in which Harrison plays the sitar.
“[My father] was bringing Indian classical music to the world. People were hearing this whole world of music for the first time,” says Shankar, who is also the younger half-sister of jazz musician Norah Jones. She notes that her father’s orchestral compositions meticulously preserved the strict framework of the raga: a melodic framework for improvisation and composition in Indian classical music.
But as a diasporic “third-culture” individual, Anoushka’s philosophy on cross-cultural collaboration has evolved from his legacy.
“Now I’m coming from a much more fluid, integrated space where multitudes just exist, and they don’t need these kinds of separations and justifications and analysis,” she says. “It’s just everything that exists within me, or within my instrument or within my music … it feels like you’re not answerable to anything or a concept.”

Her music today mirrors this integration, effortlessly shifting between classical Indian folk, jazz, electronic and even sudden bursts of punk and metal. Alternative rock band Gorillaz released a series of songs featuring Shankar on their 2026 album The Mountain.
“Damon [Albarn] was just really open. It was a really open-ended recording process,” she says of the band’s main vocalist. Her sitar ended up featuring on seven different tracks across the album.
The coming performance with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong feels like a poetic culmination of the Chapters journey.
“The phrase ‘cultural exchange’ feels a little heavy-handed, but there is something really extraordinary about being taken to parts of the world to play music. I’m really looking forward to just getting to share a part of myself with a whole new demographic of people,” she says.
But beyond the stage, she is eager to explore the city between a hectic tour and rehearsal schedule that can often feel like “survival”. She aims to test out Hong Kong’s culinary reputation.
“I’m very, very excited to eat a lot of food. Oh my God, I’ve heard such amazing things,” she says, laughing.
While a packed slate of events awaits her back home in London, she is already plotting her next artistic evolution, eyeing commissions to score for theatre, television and film. In the future, it may mean stepping back from the very spotlight that defined her.
“Maybe it doesn’t even involve the sitar necessarily,” she says. “That feels like the next phase.”


Style Edit: Chow Tai Fook’s Song collection gives the Chinese drum a golden update

Ed Sheeran calls Gaza situation ‘unjustifiable’ after Macklemore exit furore

How Astrid Jorgensen’s Pub Choir shows anyone can sing. No auditions, no judgment

5 of the best things to do in Hong Kong this weekend, September 18-20

Music

How sitarist Anoushka Shankar broke her creative block after the pandemic

Anoushka Shankar will perform in Hong Kong on June 3. She is bringing her Chapters tour to the city for a premiere alongside the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong and guest conductor Robert Ames. Photo: Laura Lewis

As a diasporic “third-culture” individual, Anoushka’s philosophy on cross-cultural collaboration has evolved from her father’s legacy. Photo: Laura Lewis

Shankar is eager to explore Hong Kong – especially the food. Photo: Jag Gundu

‘I am hungry’: Elim Chan on taking the lead at the San Francisco Symphony

Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan will start as the San Francisco Symphony’s music director in 2027. She is the first woman appointed to the role in the orchestra’s 115-year history. Photo: Cody Pickens

Chan in Hong Kong in 2024. She says she has been impressed with the SFS sound during her initial meetings with the orchestra. Photo: Antony Dickson

Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan becomes first woman to lead San Francisco Symphony

Elim Chan conducts the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra during a performance at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall in November 2024. Photo: Keith Hiro/HK Phil

Elim Chan, who has recently conducted the BBC Proms and major orchestras in Chicago, New York and Boston, in front of the San Francisco skyline. Photo: Cody Pickens

Elim Chan poses in Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui in November 2024. Photo: Antony Dickson

Hong Kong Dance Company’s ode to Chinese painter Wu Guanzhong is a head-scratcher

The “Spirit of Trees” scene from “In Between - Wu Guanzhong’s Ink Odyssey”, a Hong Kong Dance Company performance that premiered at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre on May 22, 2026 (Photo: Henry@S2 Production; Mak Cheong Wai; Kenix Chan)

A scene from Hong Kong Dance Company’s performance of In Between – Wu Guanzhong’s Ink Odyssey, which premiered at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in Tsim Sha Tsui on May 22, 2026. Photo: S2 Production

Ivana Wong sings on stage during a scene of In Between – Wu Guanzhong’s Ink Odyssey. Photo: S2 Production

The production featured black-clad dancers silhouetted against a white background, seemingly to mimic aspects of Wu’s ink paintings. Photo: S2 Production

Colourful balls rain down onto the stage during one scene of In Between – Wu Guanzhong’s Ink Odyssey. Photo: S2 Production

The “Spirit of Trees” scene from In Between – Wu Guanzhong’s Ink Odyssey featured impressive martial-arts-inspired dancing. Photo: S2 Production

Lifestyle

Arts

Culture

Shankar, who is playing in Hong Kong on June 3, describes the creative process behind her three-part album Chapters and what’s next


Shankar, who is playing in Hong Kong on June 3, describes the creative process behind her three-part album Chapters and what’s next.


Classical music

World of performing arts

How sitarist Anoushka Shankar broke her creative block after the pandemic

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Shankar, who is playing in Hong Kong on June 3, describes the creative process behind her three-part album Chapters and what’s next

Shankar, who is playing in Hong Kong on June 3, describes the creative process behind her three-part album Chapters and what’s next