Walking into Grammy-nominated sitarist Anoushka Shankar’s performance on Sunday, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect — a common phenomenon at Knoxville’s Big Ears Music Festival, which features artists from across the world and across genres.
I knew that over 1500 people had RSVP’d to her show, and I knew that even the VIP line was wrapped around the block, but attending Shankar’s performance was a somewhat impromptu decision. As soon as Shankar began playing her sitar, I knew I had come to the right performance.
The biography on Shankar’s website describes her style best — “Anoushka’s tempests of sound present ancient instruments in modern light, not as exotic set pieces, but as living, breathing, and wildly expressive, full-bodied gifts to this world. Every note played comes from the soul.”
With her sitar seeming almost like an extension of her body, Shankar sat comfortably onstage, grinning for the entirety of her performance. While she only occasionally spoke to the audience, Shankar’s musical expression created a sense of connection between herself, her band and her audience.
Joined by an unlikely ensemble of keyboard, drums, stand-up bass and clarinet, Shankar primarily played songs from “We Return to Light” — the third chapter of her trilogy of mini-albums — which she described to the audience as a celebration of “reconnection and strength and power.”
Drawing on childhood training in Indian classical music, Shankar’s experimental sound is something completely original.
With an energy rivaling that of a rockstar and riffs that were at times reminiscent of AC/DC, Shankar had the audience cheering and hollering throughout her performance. Often defying genre altogether, Shankar and her band kept audience members on their toes from start to finish, switching from slower pieces to upbeat jazz numbers with ease.
The whole time, all I could think was, ‘This is what Big Ears is all about.’ The unexpected fusion of sounds that somehow created perfect synergy epitomizes the energy one experiences when walking around downtown Knoxville during Big Ears.
Waiting in line for shows, strangers from different states, different generations and different professions came together and greeted each other like old friends — a togetherness paralleling the kind you only tend to see on game days during football season.
From behind the checkout counter at Addison’s Used & Rare Books, I was also able to witness this energy on the days of the festival I wasn’t covering for the Beacon. I spoke with customers from California, Colorado, North Carolina, Georgia and even heard a few British accents.
The thing all of these festival goers shared was their love of music and their openness to hearing new sounds. With nearly 200 performances offered over the four-day festival, attendees dip in and out of venues hearing bits and pieces of unfamiliar artists and avant-garde experimentation — an experience that requires an open mind and open ears.
At its core, Big Ears is a festival that brings together people from all walks of life.
The mission of Big Ears is “to collaborate with artists, audiences, and communities to create joyful, meaningful, and transcendent cultural experiences that defy boundaries, fuel curiosity, ignite the spirit, and nourish the soul.” That is exactly what I saw encapsulated in Shankar’s show, which fused genres and cultures with seamless execution.
While I saw several other avant-garde, experimental shows over the weekend, none captured the spirit and mission of Big Ears quite so well as Shankar’s. In an age of polarization, Shankar managed to create a sense of community that was present not only on stage, but one which rippled through the crowd even after we filed out of the theater and back into the streets of downtown Knoxville.
