L. Shankar
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Lakshminarayana Shankar (born Apr 26 1950), or L. Shankar, was born in Madras, South India. Growing up in Sri Lanka where his father V. Lakshminaraya Iyer was a professort 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. At three Shankar could hum many of the complex lines of ancient Indian compositions. He started studying the violin at the age of five and was soon recognized as a child prodigy. At the age of seven he gave his first public concert. Following the ethnic riots of 1953 his family moved back to India. With his two brothers L. Vaidyanathan and L. Subramaniam he formed a violin trio. Shankar felt that in India, the violin had always been relegated to a secondary instrument, and wanted to elevate it to a featured solo instrument.
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, where he met jazz musicians like 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 pioneering a groundbreaking and highly influential east-meets-west collaborative, fluid sound that managed to successfully combine seemingly incompatible traditions. After the disbanding of Shakti in 1978 Shankar founded his own band - The Epidemics.
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 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. The tonic-dominate tuning (EBEB or DADA) of his violin allows his harmonics to ring giving his playing its distinctive sound.
Shankar has played with some of the greatest musicians of this century, including Frank Zappa, Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Stewart Copeland, Yoko Ono, John Waite, Steve Vai, Ginger Baker, Warren Cuccurullo, Nils Lofgren, and Sting. He has also effortlessly married Eastern and Western influences, assimilating Carnatic music with pop, rock, jazz and contemporary world music. "Ultimately, I would like to bring the East and West together. That, I think, is my role," says Shankar.
"The violin is no longer a secondary instrument. Now, today, it is a very big solo instrument," says Shankar.