Karisha & The FunKaars

Karisha and The FunKaars, a world music band hailing from Canberra, Australia, offers a unique blend of Eastern and Western musical traditions. Specialising in live performances and interactive shows, the band showcases a diverse range of instruments and multilingual vocals. Through their fusion music, they aim to share the richness of Indian subcontinent culture and spirituality with their audience. FunKaars, meaning 'Artists' फनकार in Indian language, create an exciting experience of fusing Indian classical cultural spiritual folk music based on Hindustani Indian ragas with jazz mash-ups and the flavour of Bollywood.

Karisha was raised in Mumbai, India where she received her training in Indian classical vocals. Growing up, Karisha’s musical influences ranged from Classical Indian, Folk, Bollywood, to English rock and American Jazz music. Karisha performed at various venues in Mumbai but spent most of her adult life in the USA where she won the Voice of Florida singing contest in 2008. She recorded her first single in 2014 in California.

Since her move to Australia in 2019, Karisha has released 4 new singles and continues to record new music with her band, FunKaars. The music video for one of her singles was nominated for the Canberra Short Film Festival 2024.

Lyrics in English, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Farsi and Marwadi are translated by Karisha on stage adding to the audience’s cultural experience and insights.

Karisha hooks up with a diverse mix of talented musicians in Canberra who have performed together at various venues in Canberra as well as Music festivals. See our FunKaars Artist page for more information on our Band members.