Grammy nominee Anoushka Shankar to return to the Chan Centre, where rising star Hania Rani will make Vancouver debut
Shankar is a revered sitar player; Rani is a Polish pianist-vocalist-composer
Anoushka Shankar. Photo by Anushka Menon
THE CHAN CENTRE for the Performing Arts today announced two big shows for its 2023-24 programming: Sitar player Anoushka Shankar, a nine-time Grammy nominee, will perform on October 15 as part of the 26th Chan Centre Presents season; and fast-rising Polish composer, pianist, and singer Hania Rani will make her Vancouver debut on December 2 in the Chan Centre EXP series.
“These two artists are emblematic of what a promising and exciting season this is going to be at the Chan Centre,” curator-in-residence Jarrett Martineau says in a release. “The radiant Anoushka Shankar’s virtuosic performances and stunning compositions have delighted Vancouver audiences, and we are thrilled to welcome one of the world’s foremost artists back for her first performance since, as she puts it, ‘our world spun off its axis’.”
Shankar last played a sold-out show at the Chan Centre in 2019. The daughter of the late master sitar player Ravi Shankar, she was the first Indian woman to be nominated at the Grammy Awards, as well as the first Indian musician to perform and present at the prestigious ceremony. The acclaimed virtuoso, genre-defying composer, and advocate was the first and youngest female recipient of a British House of Commons Shield and has collaborated with Herbie Hancock, Sting, and Patti Smith, among others.
For Shankar’s 2023 Vancouver performance, she will perform in a quintet with clarinetist Arun Ghosh, drummer-composer Sarathy Korwar, Carnatic percussionist Pirashanna Thevarajah, and bassist Tom Farmer. Tickets will be available as part of a Chan Centre Presents subscription beginning May 5; single tickets go on sale June 13.
Rani, meanwhile, is a classically trained pianist who is fast establishing herself alongside artists like Nils Frahm and Ólafur for her cinematic, meditative, and transcendent music. Born in Gdansk, Poland, Rani splits her time between Warsaw and Berlin. Her 2019 debut album, Esja, garnered a Sanki award for Most Interesting New Face, an honour that recognizes Polish musicians as chosen by Polish journalists, as well as five Fryderyk Award nominations, which are the Polish equivalent of the Grammys. She has since released a second album, Home, which won a Fryderyk for Best Composer. She has composed music for two films and released a collaborative album with Dobrawa Czocher for Deutsches Gramophone. Rani’s live performance from the courtyard of Invalides in Paris has been viewed more than three million times since its publication on YouTube eight months ago. Tickets for Rani’s Vancouver debut go on sale on April 14 at 10 a.m.
