Brighton Festival confirms guest director for 2025

Brighton Festival was established in 1967 and is the largest annual curated multi-arts festival in England. Next year’s festival will take place from May 3-25 and is a celebration of music, theatre, dance, art, film, literature, debate, outdoor and community events in venues and locations across Brighton, Hove and Sussex.

Anoushka Shankar’s accomplishments include a series of notable firsts: with nine Grammy nominations under her belt, she was the first Indian musician to perform live and present at the Awards and the first Indian woman to be nominated. She was also the youngest and first female recipient of a British House of Commons Shield, recognising her as a pre-eminent musician of the Asian arts, and one of the first female composers to become part of the UK’s A-level music syllabus.

“With more than 25 years of performing behind her, she is a singular, genre-defying artist spanning the worlds of classical and contemporary and acoustic and electronic music,” said Andrew Comben, chief executive, Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival.

“Anoushka Shankar is already a much-loved artist by Brighton Festival audiences and we’re thrilled to welcome her as guest director for Brighton Festival 2025. Anoushka is a singular artistic voice and an incredible collaborator – her fresh perspective and ideas for new and exciting collaborations with local and international artists will bring a unique vision to the Festival. Her unwavering commitment to and advocacy for social justice will inspire Brighton Festival's wide-ranging and eclectic programme, and we look forward to enabling everyone, from our communities, and beyond, to take part in what I know will be a Festival to remember.”

Shankar began studying the sitar and Indian classical music at the age of nine under the intensive tutelage of her father, sitar master Pandit Ravi Shankar. Making her professional debut at 13, she began touring worldwide, embarking on a successful solo touring career at 18 and becoming known for her virtuosic yet emotional playing style, unusual instrumentation and precise rhythmic interplay.

Her touring career has taken her from jazz cafes to symphony halls to large-scale festival stages. A frequent collaborator, she has worked with a diverse range of artists such as Herbie Hancock, Patti Smith, Joshua Bell, Sting, Gold Panda, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Jules Buckley, her half-sister Norah Jones and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Shankar has also composed for cinema, scoring the British Film Institute’s restoration of Shiraz, one of the first major Indian silent feature films, and co-composing the soundtrack to Mira Nair’s A Suitable Boy. Known for her activism, Shankar has been outspoken about her experiences as a woman and a survivor of child abuse, supporting campaigns such as One Billion Rising, which aims to end violence against women and girls. She frequently works with organisations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.