Gingger Shankar
Gingger Shankar is an artist who draws from her rich Indian musical heritage as a member of India’s most famous music family, and a long-standing relationship with activism starting with her great grandfather’s legacy as Gandhi’s writer for his underground newspaper. She continues these traditions in her work as a musician, the world’s only female double violinist, and filmmaker.
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.
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 and, most recently, produced the hit “Rozi” by Pakistani rapper Eva B. featured in Disney’s Ms. Marvel.
She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s ‘25 New Faces to Watch’ and produced 2018 Sundance Film Festival selection Akicita: The Battle of Standing Rock and Himalaya Song - named one of “10 Best Music Films at Sundance” by Rolling Stone - and is on the Artist Advisory Board for the Sundance Film Festival and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
She is a frequent speaker for TED, UNESCO, and the Nobel Prize Summit and recently launched Little Indian Girl, a women, LGBTQIA2S+, and globally Indigenous-led storytelling collective spotlighting women who embody revolution through art.
Upcoming projects include Promises of Our Grandmothers, a feature documentary chronicling a women and Indigenous-led resistance camp’s fight against the Line 3 pipeline, and Nari: The Women Behind A Music Revolution, the unsung story of the women of the Shankar family - her mother and grandmother - two extraordinary artists who helped bring Indian music to the West in the 1970s with Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. As a musician, she has worked with The Smashing Pumpkins, Trent Reznor, Katy Perry, and Meryl Streep, and has scored numerous film and television projects including The Passion of the Christ, Charlie Wilson’s War, And She Could Be Next, and more.