Shanker Krishnan was immersed in Carnatic music from childhood, having been raised in a family devoted to music — his sister Sangita Kala Acharya Geetha Raja is a prominent vocalist, his father was a music and culture columnist, and his mother led devotional singing groups. Growing up in socialist-era India with limited exposure to external influences, he became deeply connected to Indian classical music, particularly the music of Sangita Kalanidhi Smt. T. Brinda. His formal training in Indian classical music spanned over a decade and followed the traditional guru-shishya (teacher-student) system, with one-on-one instruction from some of India’s foremost teachers: Sangita Kala Acharya Shri S. Ramachandran for Carnatic music and Padma Bhushan Ustad Khadim Hussain Khan for Hindustani music. The emphasis on improvisation inherent in Indian classical music laid the foundation for his later work in composition.

Shanker’s Western classical music training was more unconventional. After coming to the US for graduate study in applied mathematics, he discovered the world of Bach and Bartók, and spent as much time on music study at UC Berkeley as on math. While working in New York, Shanker took private lessons from composer Nils Vigeland (later Chair of Composition at the Manhattan School of Music). During his 25 years at the World Bank Group in Washington DC, Shanker studied music on the side before eventually leaving to pursue music composition full-time.

Shanker spent a decade in private study with Prof. Justin Boyer, composer and professor of composition and music theory at Montgomery College, MD. He wrote pieces ranging from inventions and fugues to classical-era style works and serialist music. However, he has always been drawn to contrapuntal music in the Baroque style. In addition to his study at Berkeley, Shanker’s non-musical education includes degrees from IIT Madras and Stanford.