India?s first fully professional orchestra, The Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), will mark its international debut on June 11 when it performs at the Fifth Festival of the World?s Symphony Orchestras in Moscow. National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai chairman Kushroo Suntook speaks with Ayesha Dominica Singh about the SOI, the performance, and performing at the grand finale of this prestigious event. Excerpts:
What will the highlights of The Symphony Orchestra of India?s performance at the Fifth Festival of the World?s Symphony Orchestras in Moscow?
The Symphony Orchestra of India was created by the NCPA four years ago as India?s first fully professional symphony orchestra, offering Indians international quality of Western classical music. When I first dreamt of creating an Indian orchestra, I received support from Dr Jamshed Bhabha, founder of NCPA, and found a ready collaborator in the renowned conductor and violinist, Marat Beisengaliev, who helped us put together an international ensemble of musicians from India, Kazakhistan, Russia and other parts of the world. Since 2006, when the first season commenced, SOI has concluded eight successful seasons.
The fifth anniversary of the festival of World Symphony Orchestras in 2010 aims to promote consolidation of intercommunication between orchestras worldwide. Some of the orchestras playing this year are the Presidential Symphony Orchestra of Turkey with Cem Mansur, China National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Michel Plasson, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra with Myung-Whun Chung and the Symphony Orchestra of India with conductor Alexander Anisimov. The Russian part of the festival will be represented by the State Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan with Fuat Mansurov and the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra performing under the baton of Alexander Sladkovsky.
How does it feel for the SOI to be playing in Russia?
It is a great honour to be part of an international festival that has played host to some of the greatest symphony orchestras in the world. This year, the festival has selected some of the most distinguished orchestras from Asia and we are deeply honoured to be among them. The invitation was extended to SOI as a result of some members of the Russian festival attending the SOI seventh season in September 2009.
Culturally, what aspects of India are currently entrancing Russian fancy and vice-versa?
Russia has had enormous affection for Indian cinema. Raj Kapoor is an instantly recognisable Indian icon, and the sounds of Awara still resonate in the streets of Moscow. The close cultural links have been strengthened by the visit of leading Russian ballet companies to India and reciprocally by Indian artistes such as Lata Mangeshkar performing in Russia. SOI will be the first Indian orchestra to perform in Russia.
How has NCPA helped promote the culture space in India?
NCPA is India?s foremost multi-cultural centre, embracing performing arts of every kind. NCPA firmly believes that the arts belong to everybody and should be all-encompassing. To this end, we have passionately pursued the dissemination of all art forms to audiences in Mumbai. From creating our own cultural properties such as SOI, to providing a platform to artistes through our international quality venues, NCPA covers the entire gamut. It also supports educational initiatives, both in Indian music through the guru-shishya parampara and in Western music, through the Suzuki method of teaching. We undertake extensive research in music and other cultural forms, have one of the finest libraries for art and culture in Mumbai and a treasure trove of archival material created by musicians over the past three decades, which provides learning and listening pleasure to many.