Happy To Be Wrong

In one of my previous posts I mentioned (in a rather worried manner) about the dwindling interest from both audience and budding musicians in Western Classical music. I was wrong.

Two stories covered by BBC World News between yesterday and today made me realize this.

The first one was about how a publicly financed music education program in Venezuela which helps youngsters from extremely impoverished background, learn Classical music of Bach and Beethoven. The program is called El Sistema and it’s been running successfully for more than 30 years now. The program keeps these youngsters away from getting into wasteful and criminal activities like drugs and mugging and instills the ‘joy of music’ in their lives.

The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, a product of the program has been getting rave reviews across the world from the critics and all the top rated musicians. To know more about this wonderful effort you can read this piece from BBC News.

Can we replicate the same model in India to give a boost to its own Classical music? In my mind, it can be a great way of discovering genuine talent hidden in the teaming pool of poverty in our country (40% of India lives Below Poverty Line, i.e. $1.25 a day). It may, along with the 'joy of music' give them a source of income.

The second story was about using a product of modern times to popularize Classical music. The result is the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.

The video-sharing website held a contest that allowed anyone, anywhere to upload a clip of themselves playing. A selection went to a popular vote. 90 winners from 30 different countries were flown in to play at Carnegie Hall, New York - one of the most prestigious venues in the world. The musicians came from as far away as Australia and South Korea.

The performance which happened yesterday was a great success with the Orchestra playing the works of Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Prokofiev and a new composition, appropriately called, ‘Internet Symphony No 1’. To know more about it you can read this article from NYT.

Great way to make classical music reach a wider audience, especially the young people!

Now, I’m less worried...feel like listening to Debussy's 'Claire de lune'.

Mixed emotions

Sunday evening was lucky for many reasons.

Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra was performing in Bombay after 50 years. My music loving father was in town. Mr Bojangles could manage entry passes for me and my father. And we had the experience of a lifetime.

A chamber orchestra is a smaller than the usual orchestra and largely consists of string instruments. Violin and its elder siblings.

The usually mild winters of Bombay has strangely become harsh with icy breeze these days and this Sunday evening was particularly cold with the venue being right next to the sea. But everything became comfortable once we were inside the warm interiors of the magnificent Jamshed Bhabha theatre. The promise of some great live music by the musicians from Germany was adding to the comfort. The 2 years old Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), was also going to give a couple of performances.

Founded in 1945, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra is the oldest professional chamber orchestra in the world and hence serves as a model for others.

The conductor was a smiling, snow-bearded violinist called Benjamin Hudson and his team lovingly rendered the subtle magic of Mozart, Bach and Greig. The bows of their violins, cellos and bass danced along while their fingers danced on the string. The performing ladies looked beautiful in their gowns and the men sophisticated in their tailcoats. I kept swaying along, reacting to each and every nuance of the compositions. All along, my lips had a constant smile. Evenings like this are rare.

The SOI gave their Stuttgart partners great company but as earnestly accepted by their conductor himself; they have a lot of catching up to do.

During the 15 minutes break, we spotted Pyaarelal of Laxmikant Pyaarelal fame. Dressed in the trademark white attire, he had also come to savour the sonorous evening.

But all wasn’t as beautiful as the music of Mozart. The average age of the audience was 65. Western Classical music is turning into a dying form of art. And this is the truth all over the world. There are very few listeners of this form of music and most of them are in the later part of their lives. Hence, it doesn’t make commercial sense. Simple. Sad. Will there be similar concerts 200 hundred years from now? In Vienna...maybe. But, in Bombay, I’m not sure.

Somehow, our own Indian Classical music scenario seems to be in a better shape than this. I might be wrong.

With these mixed emotions of exhilaration and sadness, my father and I rushed back to my sisters place for dinner with some good wine. The breeze had become icier.

ps: Can you spot the snow-bearded conductor in the picture, taken on the sly? His beard looks black here because of the violin's chin rest.

2 pages from the last 15 days

Worldly pursuits kept me away from this space for the last fortnight but life happened while I was busy making 'strategic' plans. Allow me to share a couple of pages from the last 15 days.

Independence Eve in a taxi between Gurgaon and Delhi Airport

That’s how I spent that evening. Breaking my code of keeping this space free from bad experiences, I have to talk about this. Twice I have missed my flight from Delhi airport because of traffic madness between Gurgaon and Delhi airport. The latest happened on the eve of Independence…it took me 3 hours 30 minutes to reach a destination which shouldn’t take more than half an hour. Fabulous growth has happened in this satellite city of Delhi in a fabulously unplanned manner, leading up to road chaos, highly constipated traffic, road accidents, power cuts and a backache because of that 3 and half hour inside the taxi.

A 16-year-old stole my heart on a breezy Friday evening
She came dressed in an elegant black frock, sat on the pianoforte and played Beethoven’s ‘Pathetique’, a Sonata in C, in its totality with the finesse and élan of a mature musician. Later, she went on to play ‘Nocturne in E’ by Chopin, ‘Impromptu No.4’ by Schubert and a Polka by Berkeley with the same confidence and skill. Only when she got up to accept the warm accolades of the audience and a bouquet from National Center For The Performing Arts (NCPA), her shy girlishness got exhibited. Her name is Anushka Godinho and she started learning music at the age of 5.

This happened at a beautiful Western Classical concert we (me and my good friend) went for at the NCPA, Mumbai last Friday. This great institution provides a very useful platform to these budding artistes to display their talent. It helps nurture & support new talent and keeps the genre of Western Classical music alive…a great effort, I must say!

The other musicians of the evening were 2 young men. A 20-year-old Classical guitarist, Samuel Lewis from Bombay and 23-year-old, Murugesan on Recorder from Pondicherry. Samuel (who also plays the Organ) performed Bach, Tarrega, Albinez on the nylon strings with perhaps the passion and memory of the composers themselves. He ended the evening with a beautiful version of ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’.

Murugesan handled compositions of Debussy, Vivaldi & Purcell. Personally, I don’t like Recorder as an instrument so I shall reserve my comments on the same. Think I will do the same for Murugesan.

Hope this description of that lovely evening cancelled out the negative energy emanating from my first experience.

Later, that evening I enjoyed some scotch and conversation with a couple of old friends (including the good friend mentioned earlier).