Composer Of The Week: Five Under 40 - Contemporary British Composers

As part of Radio 3’s Sound Frontiers fortnight at Southbank Centre, celebrating seven decades of pioneering music and culture since the founding of the Third Programme, Donald Macleod speaks to five members of a new generation of British composers about their work. Featuring music by Anoushka Shankar, Gwilym Simcock, Helen Grime, Anna Meredith and Daniel Kidane.

Donald's first guest this week is composer and sitar player Anoushka Shankar. Trained from the age of nine by her father Ravi Shankar in the classical style of sitar playing, Shankar has made her mark internationally as a performer and as a composer. An instinct for musical collaboration and crossing musical boundaries has resulted in her own distinctive brand of composition, demonstrating the versatility of the sitar, and the art of blending traditional forms with world and folk influenced music.

Music includes:
Anoushka Shankar, Nitin Sawnhey
Traces of you
feat. Norah Jones, vocal
Anoushka Shankar, sitar
Tanmoy Bose, tabla
Manu Delago, glockenspiel
Nitin Sawhney, guitars, percussion, ukulele and programming

Anoushka Shankar
Raga Manj Khamaj (excerpt)
Anoushka Shankar, sitar
Tanmoy Bose, tabla
Kenui Ota, bass and treble tanpura

Anoushka Shankar
Red Sun
Bikram Ghosh and Tanmoy Bose, vocals
Jesse Charnow, drums
Bikram Ghosh, percussion
Ajay Prasanna, bansuri
Kevin Cooper, bass
Anoushka Shankar, keyboards
Sukanya Shankar, tanpura

Presenter: Donald Macleod
Producer: Johannah Smith for the BBC

Publicity contact: BBC Radio 3 Publicity