She is a fifth-generation amateur classical north Indian musician in the Senia tradition. She is also a freelance writer on the arts for, amongst others, The Hindu, The Asian Age, The Tribune, Sruti magazine, Indian Perspectives (the journal of the Ministry of External Affairs) and Indian Art Review. A member of the Expert Committee Music, Department of Language Art and Culture, Government of Himachal Pradesh, Shailaja Khanna has played a key role in organising annual classical music and dance festivals.
For a year, she helped put together the monthly “Poornima” concerts for Indira Gandhi National Centre For The Arts (IGNCA), as well as their all night music festival in 2018. She has delivered lectures to PG diploma students of IGNCA Cultural Management Programme, and Bhishma School of Indic Studies (BSIS) Pune Indian Classical Music, has taken part in panel discussions at Sangeet Natak Akademi, India International Centre, and interviews for Arth. During COVID lockdown, she helped put together more than 12 episodes of Young Masters series for Insync TV. A part time archivist of North Indian classical music collection for Sangeet Natak Akademi, she has also researched and written DVD/CD sleeves for Prasar Bharti. She is currently writing a book on Kishori Amonkar.
Besides, she has worked in the field of handicrafts for around 25 years, ending with being Director Merchandising at Indian Inc, a Scottish owned buying agency, and then Director Merchandising for Michael Aram, New York. Thereafter she ran her own handicraft sourcing company for seven years, before focussing on her first love, the arts.
