[5][6] In addition to releasing seven solo studio albums beginning with Anoushka (1998), she has also worked alongside a wide variety of musicians, including Karsh Kale on the full-length collaboration Breathing Under Water (2007) and her father Ravi Shankar.

She has received eleven[7] Grammy Awards nominations and was the first musician of Indian origin to perform live and to serve as a presenter at the ceremony.

She gave her first public sitar performance on 27 February 1995 at the age of 13, at Siri Fort in New Delhi as part of her father's 75th birthday celebration concert.

Having released three albums of Indian classical music, Shankar took several years away from recording and focused her energy on establishing herself as a solo concert performer outside of her father's ensemble.

This marked the beginning of a prolific recording and creative period for Shankar, during which time she continued to refine the sitar sound and musical ideas she had become known for.

She earned a third Grammy Award nomination in 2013 for Traveller, an exploration of the shared history between flamenco and Indian classical music, which was produced by Javier Limón and featured artists such as Buika, Pepe Habichuela and Duquende.

As Shankar had begun to do with RISE, she created a specially handpicked ensemble of musicians with whom to perform this cross-genre music, and played over a hundred concerts worldwide in support of Traveller.

Produced by Nitin Sawhney, and featuring her half-sister Norah Jones as the sole vocal performer, Traces of You earned Shankar a fourth Grammy nomination in the World Music category.

[12] The release featured different types of contributions – from the vocal of MIA and Alev Lenz, to the monologue of "Remain the Sea" by veteran British actress Vanessa Redgrave.

In 2019 came the compilation Reflections, a 20-year retrospective album that revisits the best of Shankar's cross-cultural back catalogue with Deutsche Grammophon, including many of her previous collaborations with fellow artists and producers.

[18] Throughout her career, Shankar has made many guest appearances on recordings by other artists, among them Sting, Lenny Kravitz, Thievery Corporation and Nitin Sawhney.

[21] Shortly after, she appeared on Peradam, the third and final instalment of album trilogy Perfect Vision by Patti Smith and Soundwalk Collective alongside Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Tenzin Choegyal; she also collaborated with Grammy-nominated Deva Premal on the song "Prabhujee", released in November 2020.

On 13 November 2020, Shankar was featured on "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" as part of the BBC Radio 2's Allstars' Children in Need charity single.

Shankar took her first steps into scoring with a Bengali lullaby composed for director Joe Wright's Anna Karenina (2012), starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law and Tannishtha Chatterjee.

[28] In the same year (2017) she co-wrote and performed on the end-title song "Gain the Ocean" for the Judi Dench-starred British-American biographical drama Victoria & Abdul directed by Stephen Frears.

[29] More recently she co-composed the score to Mira Nair's (Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair, The Namesake) BBC six-part series A Suitable Boy (2020); based on Vikram Seth's classic novel of the same title, the show developed by Andrew Davies (Bridget Jones's Diary, War & Peace, Les Misérables) stars Tabu, Tanya Maniktala and Ishaan Khatter.

In 2000 she shared the stage with Madonna and Bryan Adams at the Summer's Tibetan Peace Garden Benefit concert organised in London by Sting's wife Trudie Styler;[32] on 29 November 2002, Shankar was the featured performer of the "Indian" half of the Concert for George, a posthumous tribute to the life and music of George Harrison, held at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Also in 2002 she performed alongside Patti Labelle, Elton John, Nina Simone and others for Rock for the Rainforest, the benefit concert organized by Sting and Trudie Styler at Carnegie Hall.

[35] In February 2018 she read a poem as part of Letters Live for Help Refugees, alongside other performers such as Gemma Arterton, Andrew Scott, Jade Anouka, Cara Theobaold, Florence Welch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Joely Richardso, among many others.

[57] Artists4Ceasfire In October 2023, Shankar signed the Artists4Ceasefire open letter to Joe Biden, President of the United States, calling for a ceasefire in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza.