Lakshminarayanan Shankar (born April 26 1950) also known as L. Shankar Shankar or Shenkar is a Tamil Indian violinist vocalist and composer.
Contents
Biography
Early life
Summary of career
Discography (partial)
Filmography
Music department
Additional soundtracks
Biography
Early life
L. Shankar was born in Madras Tamil Nadu. Growing up in Jaffna in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon) where his father V. Lakshminarayan was a professor at the Jaffna College of Music Shankar was exposed to Carnatic music from an early age. His father was an esteemed violinist his mother L. Seethalakshmi played the veena and all his five older siblings were also proficient in music. The most well known of his brothers is another acclaimed and renowned violinist - L. Subramaniam who has recorded a number of records himself.
Shankar began singing at the age of two playing violin at the age of five and learning to play drums at seven. At the age of seven L. Shankar gave his first public concert at the Nallur Kandaswamy temple. He gained considerable reputation in his early youth as an accompanist to some of the most eminent names in Carnatic music such as Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer Chembai Vaithyanatha Baghavatar Palghat Mani Iyer and Alathur Srinivasa lyer. Following the ethnic riots of 1953 his family moved back to India.
Summary of career
After obtaining a Bachelor s degree in Physics in India Shankar moved to America in 1969 and earned a doctorate in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. Here he met jazz musicians Ornette Coleman Jimmy Garrison and John McLaughlin while working as a teaching assistant and concert master of the University Chamber Orchestra. In 1975 Shankar and McLaughlin founded Shakti a pioneering groundbreaking and highly influential east-meets-west collaborative fluid sound that managed to successfully combine seemingly incompatible traditions. His first solo album Touch Me There was produced by Frank Zappa in 1979.
Shankar founded his own band - The Epidemics in 1982 with the composer Caroline. He released three albums with the band. During the 1980s Shankar recorded periodically as a leader doing both jazz-based material and Indian classical music. His 1980 release of the album Who s To Know on ECM introduced the unique sound of his own invention the ten-string stereophonic double violin. This instrument designed by Shankar and built by noted guitar maker Ken Parker covers the entire orchestral range including double bass cello viola and violin. He has recently developed a newer version of his instrument which is much lighter than the original. 1990 saw Shankar co-producing a one hour film directed by H. O. Nazareth which went on to be nominated for Best Documentary film at the Cannes film festival. Shankar worked on the score of the film The Last Temptation of Christ 1988 with his music ending up on both albums of the score - Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ and Passion - Sources. He won a Grammy for his work on the latter in 1994. Shankar has performed on several of Peter Gabriel s records such as So and Us. Since 1996 Shankar has toured internationally with fellow-violinist and his niece Gingger as Shankar & Gingger garnering critical acclaim and popularity. The two performed at events including the Concert for Global Harmony and Nelson Mandela s 80th birthday celebrations. Shankar & Gingger released their first DVD One in a Million in 2001. After a critically successful tour of North America the DVD went to number 1 on the Neilsen Soundscan DVD charts and stayed there for four weeks. In 2004 Shankar composed and performed on the score for the film The Passion of the Christ 2004.
Shankar has played with some of the greatest musical contemporaries of his time including Lou Reed Echo and the Bunnymen Talking Heads Frank Zappa Peter Gabriel Elton John Eric Clapton Phil Collins Jonathan Davis Bruce Springsteen Van Morrison Stewart Copeland Yoko Ono A. R. Rahman John Waite Steve Vai Ginger Baker Toto Nils Lofgren Mark O Connor and Sting.Shankar has been praised for his ability to mix Eastern and Western influences assimilating Carnatic music with pop rock jazz and contemporary world music. He admits Ultimately I would like to bring the East and West together. That I think is my role he says. More recently Shankar has used a new stage name Shenkar - and has created recordings under this name. In 2006 - 2007 Shenkar provided the vocals for the opening credit music and other themes for the hit TV series Heroes.
Discography partial
L. Shankar has served as an instrumentalist composer record producer arranger and programmer on several recordings. He has released a number of his own recordings in addition to appearing on other artists albums. All credits are for violin except where noted. This is not an exhaustive list of Shankar s works but a select few titles.
Filmography
Music department
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) – Double violin violin vocals composer record producer
Jacob s Ladder (1990) – Violin vocals performer double violin
White Sands (1992) – Percussion violin vocals
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) – Double violin
The Passion of the Christ (2004) – Composer vocals double violin
Hidalgo (2004) – Double violin
Heroes (2006 - present) (TV series) – Vocals
Additional soundtracks
Ali (2001) – Writer performer on Track: Dreams
Queen of the Damned (2002) – Vocals double violin on Tracks: Forsaken Redeemer System Slept So Long Not Meant for Me
Born into Brothels (2004) – Performer on Track: Sankarabaranam Pancha Nadai Pallavi
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