L. Shankar Biography 
L. Shankar, also known as Shenkar, is an Indian-born American violinist born in an Indian musical family. He is also known as a singer and composer. His full name is Lakshminarayana Shankar. Subramaniam was born in Chennai in 1950 in a musical family. Both his parents, V. Lakshminarayana, and Seethalakshmi were accomplished musicians. He was initiated to music by his father. He lived in Jaffna during his younger years where his father was a professor at the Jaffna College of Music. Well-known violinist-composers L. Subramaniam and L. Vaidyanathan are his brothers. Renowned playback singer of Bollywood, Kavita Krishnamurthy is his sister-in-law. His niece Bindu Subramaniam and nephew Ambi Subramaniam are also musicians. Another nephew Dr. Narayana Subramaniam is a poet and ghazal singer.
Shankar learnt Carnatic music as well as other forms of music at a younger age. His father was a violinist, his mother L. Seethalakshmi played the veena and all his five older siblings were also related to music. Young Shankar was inspired a lot by his family as well as Tyagaraja to take music as career. Shankar started singing at the age of two, played violin at the age of five, and learnt to play drums at seven. He gave his first public appearance at the age of 7 at the Nallur Kandaswamy temple. After graduation, he moved to US in 1969 where he earned a doctorate in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University. Then he worked as a teaching assistant and concert master of the University Chamber Orchestra.
His first solo album, Touch Me There, was produced by Frank Zappa in 1979. In 1982, he formed his own band named, The Epidemics and released three albums under this name. Shankar has played with some of the greatest musical contemporaries of his time and most recently he changed his stage name to Shenker.
Published: N/A
Updated: February 20, 2014
