But growing up with such a world-famous dad – and, by the way, a pretty famous half-sister by the name of Norah Jones – has never really fazed Anoushka. A prodigy who started playing sitar at age nine and grew up in London and California, she has released such albums as Anoushka, Anourag and the 2003 Grammy-nominated Live at Carnegie Hall, which made her the youngest ever nominee in the Best World Music Album category. (She also somehow found time to write a book about her dad: Ravi Shankar: Bapi – The Love of My Life.) Her latest album, Rise, fuses her classical stylings with elements such as flamenco, bossa nova and Brazilian music. ‘I loved composing it,’ she says excitedly. ‘The sitar is there throughout the album, but I found myself in love with the other sounds and other performers.’ Hardly the stuffy classical snob, she says Massive Attack, Portishead, Bjork and world music heartthrob Ottmar Liebert are on her current CD rotation list.

Hm, I have always felt that the nylon strings of the Flamenco guitar and the steel strings of the Sitar would sound very nice together! The first is short and tends to sound percussive and the latter is long and sings.