A Sound of Music: 7 Indian musicians who have won the Grammy Award

The Grammy Awards celebrates excellence in the field of music. This prestigious award has bestowed many Indian artists.

The Grammy Award originally called the Gramophone Awards is one of the most prominent awards that recognize the achievements in the field of music. In its 62 years of existence, many renowned Indian artists have received it. Here are some of the music maestros who bought home the illustrious award.

  1. Pandit Ravi Shankar
The most famous sitar player in the world, Pandit Ravi Shankar bought back five Grammy Awards including a lifetime achievement award. He is often credited to popularize Hindustani Classical music to the West. Interestingly, his daughter Norah Jones is also a Grammy Award winner.
  1. T.H. Vinayakram
Popularly known as Vikku Vinayakram. He is known as God of “Ghatam”. He was awarded the Grammy in the year 1991 for Mickey Hart’s Album “Planet Drum” in the Best world music album. He is said to have donated all the proceeds from the award to the charities.
  1. Ustad Zakir Hussain
The Ace tabla player, Ustad Zakir Hussain, has been awarded the Grammy twice. Once in 1992 and then in 2009. The master percussionist is known to collaborate with various artists and experiment a lot with his style.
  1. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, an expert Mohan Veena player has won Grammy for his album ”A meeting by the river” with Ry Cooder. He is widely known for his fusion and collaborations with several artists from the West.
  1. A.R Rahman
He is known as the world’s most prolific music composer.  He won two Grammy Awards for the movie “Slumdog Millionaire”. He was one of the most creative and sought-after music directors in Bollywood, long before his Grammy Win.
  1. Ricky Kej
The Bengaluru based musician and keyboard player, Ricky Kej won the Grammy for his album Winds of Samsara in 2015. He along with the South African musician Wouter Kellerman came together on this project which they call a “truly global effort”.
  1. Tanvi Shah
The only Indian woman to have won the prestigious Grammy, Tanvi Shah sings and write songs in Spanish, Portuguese and even Arabic. She won the Grammy in the Best song written for a motion picture category for “Jai Ho”.

These Indian musicians have raised the bar high for the young and upcoming musician. And as the world is coming closer and we have started to appreciate the music beyond the boundaries of race, ethnicity and language, we will see many more names from India in the Grammy.