“The story of how India got its own symphony orchestra is the stuff of legend,” writes Rachel Lopez in Tuesday’s (9/6) Hindustan Times (Mumbai). “Twelve years ago, National Centre Performing Arts chairman Kushroo Suntook was at a concert in London when he was struck by a singular idea.… He approached the concert’s conductor, the world-renowned Marat Bisengaliev. I have a foolish suggestion, Suntook said, how would you like to set up India’s first professional Western classical orchestra. It is a foolish suggestion, Bisengaliev agreed. But he signed on anyway. It took two years to piece it all together—70 musicians across string, brass, woodwind and percussion, including … local players, imported talent, seasonal concerts, bells, whistles, the works. This September, that idea—the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI)—turns 10, with a celebration of five concerts, 17 local musicians among its 77 members, and a reputation for quality in a country with still no other school for Western orchestral music.… The SOI has … worked with top conductors and under associate music director Zane Dalal, toured as far away as Russia, Switzerland and Oman. ‘But the real accomplishment is the emergence of homegrown talent,’ Bisengaliev says.’ ”
Posted September 8, 2016
