LONDON: Internationally acclaimed sitar player Anoushka Shankar will travel to India for a six-city tour in December for her new album “Land of Gold”. The album was released on Deutsche Grammophon earlier in 2016. The tour will begin on December 2 and end on December 11. Shankar will travel to cities including Chennai, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad for the tour. This will be her fifth countrywide solo tour of India.
“Land of Gold” is a fusion of electronics and cross-genre collaborations. Shankar said that this was her response to ongoing displacemnt with people fleeing conflict and poverty. “‘Land of Gold’ is the culmination of my journey to the interior, channelling my distress at the situation in a constructive way, exploring the stories of the voiceless and dispossessed,” Anoushka said in a statement.
“The central message of ‘Land of Gold’ is the recognition of the resilience of the human spirit and of our capacity to find the place where enduring hope resides.”Everyone is, in some way or another, searching for their own ‘Land of Gold’: a journey to a place of security, connectedness and tranquility, which they can call home,” she added.
Anoushka said that the “idea of millions of people being driven out of their homes”, is not a political issue, but a “humanitarian issue”.”I’m not pretending I can change the world, or to be an expert on social and political affairs. But I certainly have a right to say when something is wrong,” she said.”It’s important to be a part of a culture and community, and to be a positive influence in every aspect of my life that I can,” she added.
Musafir Namah Bureau
