Anoushka Shankar in conversation with Andreas Ottensamer (13 min.)

Anoushka Shankar was born in 1981 – the same year the Second Concerto for Sitar and Orchestra by her father, Ravi Shankar, was premiered in New York. The conductor then was Zubin Mehta, who also commissioned the work. Anoushka Shankar is now one of the best-known virtuosos on the sitar, an Asian long-necked lute, and has performed the composition all over the world. The concerto, named Raga-Mālā was also on the programme on the occasion of her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker, with Zubin Mehta again conducting. The artist talks here with Andreas Ottensamer, principal clarinet with the Berliner Philharmoniker, about her family’s friendship with the great conductor, about Indian and European music, and the interplay of precisely notated and improvised passages in her father’s concerto.