Bengaluru-based keyboardist-producer Ricky Kej – who scooped up the Grammy for Best New Age Album with iconic drummer Stewart Copeland of The Police — wasn’t the only India connection in this year’s Grammy Awards on Sunday evening. Mumbai-born, New York-based singer Falguni Shah won a Grammy for the Best Children’s Album.
Better known by her stage name Falu, Shah received the Grammy for her album A Colorful World. The singer-songwriter thanked the Recording Academy on Instagram. “I don’t have words to convey today’s magic,” she posted with photos from the occasion.
Shah had previously received a Grammy nomination in the same category for her 2018 album Falu’s Bazaar.
Shah, who is in her early forties, had studied Hindustani Classical music in the Jaipur musical tradition, as well as the Benares style of thumri with Kaumudi Munshi and semi-classical music with Uday Mazumdar. She later studied with the late sarangi/vocal teacher Ustad Sultan Khan, as well as the late great Kishori Amonkar.
Shah relocated to the US in 2000 and launched her self-titled solo album, which blended aspects of South-East Asian traditional music with Western music, in 2007.
Shah has collaborated with the likes of renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, rapper-producer Wyclef Jean, composer Philip Glass, Latin pop superstar Ricky Martin, blues-rock jam band Blues Traveler and India’s very own A R Rahman, among others.
