Indian origin musicians feature on Grammy Nominations

Indian origin musicians feature on Grammy Nominations

After sweeping awards in 2023 by Ustad Zakir Hussain, Rakesh Chaurasia, and Ricky Kej for various music tracks and albums, this year too, India shines bright at the International Music Award show. This year, in total, six Indian origin musicians have marked their grand presence in the Nomination list.

Ricky Kej, a three time Grammy winner, is in the run for his fourth one. Winning this year too would be his second consecutive win. His album Break of Dawn has been nominated in the Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album category. Running in the same category, Anoushka Shankar, has received her 10th Nomination for her album Chapter II: How Dark It Is Before Dawn. Her second nomination is for British multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Jacob Collier’s song, A Rock Somewhere, in the Best Global Music Performance category. Anoushka, daughter of the legendary Indian artiste, also a Grammy winner, is also the first Indian to ever perform and be a presenter at the Grammy’s. While she has been nominated for nine times, the award has still eluded her.

The other two artists who feature in Best Global Music Performance category are Varijashree Venugopal and Noshir Mody. Varijashree, a flautist is nominated for the same track, A Rock Somewhere as Anoushka Shankar. Noshir Mody, a self taught guitarist, is a part of Kashira by Masa Takumi, along with Ron Korb and Dale Edward Chung.

Radhika Vekaria, Indian-origin British artist is competing against her fellow Indian origin Artist, Kej and Shankar in the Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album category for her second album, Warriors Of Light. The multi-lingual album features Radhika’s vocals in Sanskrit, Hindi, Tamil and English. The sixth artist Chandrika Tandon is nominated for her album Triveni in the Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album category. The interesting trivia about the classically trained vocalist Tandon is that she herself is also an accomplished entrepreneur with US Based Tandon Capital Associates Inc and is the older sister of PepsiCo’s Chief Indra Nooyi.

The awards given by the US National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, recognise outstanding musical works and will be held on February 13th, 2025 in the USA.