Shankar Tucker Biography 
Shankar Tucker is an American clarinetist and music composer who is best known for his YouTube music channel "The ShrutiBox". He is known for his fusion music where he combines Indian classical music with Western forms of music. In association with Vidya Iyer, of Indian origin he has recreated many old versions of both Indian and other music forms. In fact Vidya Iyer is a part of his band. Shankar is to debut Indian film music industry through bilingual south Indian film - 'Orey Nyabagam' (Tamil) / 'Nee Vaipe' (Telugu), the film directed by Vignarajan.
He was born and brought up in Boston, Massachusetts. He is the son of famous sculptor William G. Tucker and his artist wife, Pamela Kamini Avril. He has a younger sister, Akshaya Avril Tucker who has collaborated with him in his music career. He was given the Indian name by the Hindu spiritual leader from Kerala, Mata Amritanandamayi on her US tour, and his family members are great devotees of her. During his younger days he wanted to learn saxophone. But his parents sent him to his grandfather to learn clarinet at the age of 10. He attended the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter Public School.
At the age of 15, he happened to hear Remember Shakti, a collaboration of John McLaughlin with renowned Indian artists. Since then he got drawn towards Indian classical music. Though he continued learning and performing in Western classical music, he wanted to learn Indian classical music as well. Later he got opportunity to learn its fundamentals from Peter Row, a sitar player. He completed graduation from Clarinet Classical Performance in 2010 and received a grant by the Frank Huntingdon Beebe Fund to pursue his ambition to adapt the clarinet to Indian classical performance. In 2010 he became a student of renowned musician Hariprasad Chaurasia.
Since then he has performed on Indian and Western fusion music. He has also been a part of Mata Amritanandamayi’s tour to 12 major cities across the US. He released his first fusion album, Uplift, in Amma’s 2009 US tour. As a clarinetist, he also got opportunity to share stage with many renowned Indian artists like Zakir Hussain, Hariprasad Chaurasia, and Raghu Dixit. Shankar has been successfully associated with Vidya Iyer, US based Indian singer, who is a member of his band as well. Most recently she released a fusion song of famous Malayalam boat song - "Kuttanadan Punjayile” with extra inputs by Shankar Tucker with whom she has associated with for many live performances. In 2015 he released his album – Filament.
Published: N/A
Updated: June 26, 2016
