ABOUT
Gingger Shankar is an artist, composer, filmmaker, and activist who was born into one of the world’s most acclaimed and influential musical families. As the only female in the world who has mastered the double violin, Shankar already inhabits her own niche in the musical world.
She has worked with top artists, producers, and film composers including The Smashing Pumpkins, Saul Williams, Trent Reznor, Peter Gabriel, Steve Vai, Katy Perry, Mike Nichols, Meryl Streep, RocNation, Marilyn Manson, Brian Wilson, and James Newton Howard and scored numerous film and television projects including The Passion of the Christ, Charlie Wilson’s War, And She Could Be Next, and the CNN film We Will Rise: Michelle Obama’s Mission to Educate Girls Around the World.
In 2012, she debuted her multi-media project Himalaya Song at the Sundance Film Festival. It was a project about climate change in the Himalayas with live film, narration, and music created by Gingger, Mridu Chandra and the Shanghai Restoration Project. It was chosen as one of the 10 Best Music Films at Sundance by Rolling Stone Magazine. She is on the Artist Advisory Board for the Sundance Film Festival and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
Born into a family of musicians, she began touring at an early age: by the age of 14, she was performing at Madison Square Garden. She debuted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a soprano in Osvaldo Golijov’s opera “Ainadamar” and later performed it at Carnegie Hall.
A frequent speaker for TED, Gingger is a champion of girl’s education and empowerment. She recently launched Little Indian Girl, a non-profit which serves as a fiscal sponsor for other artists and projects and provides scholarships for young girls and women in areas such as science, music, and leadership.
Gingger is currently in development and production on Promises of Our Grandmothers, chronicling women at the frontlines of environmental battles, and Nari, the unsung story of the women from India’s first family of music, to life through a forthcoming feature-length documentary and accompanying album. It will explore how her mother and grandmother (Viji and Lakshmi Shankar) fought to overcome numerous challenges artistically and personally in their homeland as they helped to establish Indian music in the west.
CONTACT:
Erin Cook | Little Indian Girl | erin@littleindiangirl.com