Berklee Indian Ensemble Earns Grammy Nomination in Best Global Music Album Category

With the Recording Academy awards – The Grammys – nominations announced earlier today, one way in which Indian music was represented was with Berklee Indian Ensemble’s album Shuruaat being nominated in the long-running Best Global Music Album category.

Previously known as the Best World Music Album category when it started in 1991, the category sees Berklee Indian Ensemble being nominated alongside Nigerian artist Burna Boy, Beninese singer-songwriter and powerhouse vocalist Angelique Kidjo with Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf, Indo-American sitarist-composer and vocalist Anoushka Shankar with Metropole Orkest, Jules Buckley and Manu Delago, plus Japanese multi-instrumentalist Masa Takumi.

Released in July, the Berklee Indian Ensemble’s album Shuruaat was a culmination of the decade they’d spent performing in the U.S., India and different parts of the world. Spanning jazz, prog-rock, Indian classical and more, the album brought in Indian veterans such as tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, composer-singer Shankar Mahadevan, Kannada vocalist Vijay Prakash and playback singer Shreya Ghoshal, plus New Delhi duo Shadow and Light, among others.

It comprises reimagined versions of Tamil film songs, two tributes to jazz-fusion pioneers Shakti and four original compositions created by members of the ensemble, including Dhruv Goel, Sashank Navaladi, Sharon Renold and Armeen Musa.

Founder Annette Philip took to Instagram to talk about the nomination, sharing, “So it’s been a couple of hours and I’m still very happy. The Berklee Indian Ensemble Shuruaat album has been nominated for Best Global Music Album. We’re 98 musicians and even more amazing engineers and all sorts of people who worked on this. It took a village to get this out and we could not be more grateful to everyone who considered us and made this possible. Lots more music coming.”

She added in the post’s description, “Thank you all soooooo much for your support and encouragement. Means the world. Gosh… From that seed of an idea 11 years ago to our massive global fam… grateful. It’s been such a journey with this fam and with this project itself. Surreal moment. We did it, my loves. Together. Umahs and Huggles! Tummy happy! Biriyani and hotpot for errrbodyyyy [sic].”

The Grammys take place on February 5th next year.