At a recent Symphony Orchestra of India concert in Mumbai, the 1,000-seat auditorium was packed. There were people from all walks of life—South Mumbai residents, college students, office goers and schoolchildren—for a concert of classical compositions by western greats such as Richard Wagner, Dmitri Shostakovich and Edward Elgar.
“They are not very easy on the ears,” said conductor Martyn Brabbins. Yet the members of the audience closed their eyes and felt the euphoria of the pieces.
There were several goosebump moments and the audience sat through it, applauding louder after each composition. “It was my first symphony orchestra and I was blown away,” said health start-up co-founder Ajitesh Singaria, 30. “Nothing had prepared me for how beautiful and amazing the experience of listening to 100 musicians in perfect sync, and in the beautiful NCPA auditorium would be,” he said. “I wish I had signed up for these concerts earlier.”
It has taken 20 years for SOI to create this kind of appreciation for western classical music among a wide range of people. Their listeners are not just those who have learnt music or are trained aficionados, but also those who simply want to enjoy an evening with fine compositions. The only professional orchestra in the country, SOI, housed at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), has made the western classical genre accessible, and the concerts also attract a number of younger, first-time listeners.
Training Indian Performers
Over the years, the ensemble has collaborated with late tabla maestro Zakir Husain, sitarist Niladri Kumar and flautist Rakesh Chaurasia, and has performed in the UK, Switzerland, UAE, Oman and Russia. In Mumbai, Chaurasia, for instance, played with the orchestra in a triple concerto about three years ago with Husain and Kumar. “The performance taught me how to enjoy written music,” explains Chaurasia.
Twenty years ago, 80-90% of the orchestra comprised foreign players. Today, half of the 100 musicians in the orchestra are Indian. “The goal is to have all or most Indian players,” says Khushroo Suntook, chairman, NCPA, who founded SOI in 2006 along with violin virtuoso Marat Bisengaliev.
Suntook remembers hearing frequent and loud nyet (Russian for no) from Bisengaliev during their first audition in Mumbai. The Kazakh has been SOI’s artistic director since inception. “I must have auditioned 100-plus musicians. They were all immensely talented but lacked the right technique,” he says.
India has a handful of professional academies teaching western classical music. “It was a little bit of a dream to even think about a professional symphony orchestra in India,” recalls Suntook.
When he first proposed the idea to Bisengaliev, the musician laughed. But after performing at the NCPA and with the support of Jamshed Bhabha, co-founder of NCPA, the orchestra started taking shape.
The NCPA started its own music academy in 2012, training young Indian talent and giving them an opportunity to play professionally. Tivona D’Souza Murphy, 22, is one of them. She enrolled in the academy at age 12 and auditioned as a pianist but fell short in technique. She was asked to choose another instrument that she could learn from scratch. She opted for double bass.
Three years later, she was playing for SOI and has also performed with Zubin Mehta and a few professional and student orchestras abroad.
“I have been able to play elsewhere because of the high standards SOI expects from its students,” she says. Currently studying medical science in London, Murphy plays for the SOI every year as a guest musician for one or both of its seasons in February and August.
Dion D’Souza, 38, has been a member of SOI’s chamber of 40 musicians for many years now. “It was quite tough to get in. I have worked endless hours to get a spot in the chamber,” he says. He also writes and creates parts of compositions for the orchestra. When he joined, there was no academy nor a formal trainee programme, which SOI now has. After almost seven years of schooling, students go through a traineeship of about two years before securing a spot in the chamber. The academy currently has 75 students.
A Career in Music
One of the teachers at the academy is Olga Lyapina from Turkmenistan, one of the many musicians and staff felicitated at the 20th year anniversary celebration in Mumbai last month. When the orchestra started in 2006, Bisengaliev had asked her to sign a three-year contract. “I refused. I didn’t want to be here for that long then,” she laughs. “I just got too attached to my students. I think they need me and I can’t leave them,” she adds.
But some students have been leaving, either for academics or music schools abroad. “I wish they stayed and joined the orchestra full time. My dream of seeing more Indian faces would then be fulfilled,” says Suntook.
Bisengaliev makes a case for young music talent to stay here too. “The European orchestra scene is no longer as lucrative as it was earlier. It makes more sense for younger musicians to work here where there is less competition,” he says.
Riddhi Doshi is a Mumbai-based art, culture and travel writer.