Rasika Shekar

Rasika was born in Dubai but she later moved to America to pursue her passion. She learned Carnatic music from her aunt who was a Carnatic vocalist. She discovered jazz when she was playing in a band whilst studying engineering in Rutgers University. Rasika started her musical career in 2011 by accompanying the ghazal maestro Ustad Ghulam Ali Khan on his US tour. Though we consider the flute to be a very traditional instrument, she believes that it can and should be used to make modern music as it adds another element that the listeners are not used to. The innovation done by fusion artists is very underrated in this generation of music.

Her desire to learn more about Indian classical music is the reason why she migrated to India. She has worked with the musical trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy and has also performed live with the Ehsaan and Loy production in MTV’s Coke Studio Season 2. At the World Flute Festival held in Delhi last year, she was the only Indian flautist to stage her own production, which ranged from classical, contemporary to fusion instrumental music. This is one of her most cherished experiences of her musical career. Her creative composition was a breath of fresh air to most of the listeners. She then enrolled in Berklee Valencia to polish up her skills and improve her knowledge, which is definitely evident in her later performances.

Her Carnatic base had an additional level of global music thanks to her course in Berklee. Being an emotional person who struggles to express her emotions, she feels that music is an outlet which helps her express herself in ways that she can't express verbally, this has led to her being ritualistically obsessed with music. She listens to ghazals if she’s too stressed and needs to calm her thoughts down. This love for music definitely translates into her playing. In 2012, Rasika made her Bollywood debut by singing in the critically acclaimed film Dekh Indian Circus Click to look into! >> Read More... . This opportunity was given to her by Shankar Ehsaan Loy. She performed with them on tour too. Rasika has also done backup vocals for the movies Kill Dill and 2 States.