A Musical Odyssey

When the National Centre of Performing Arts (NCPA) in Mumbai launched the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), it was without knowing if it could find enough musicians or audiences to fill up the auditorium. But, in ten years, it has launched 20 successful seasons, invited guest conductors such as Charles Dutoit and Augustin Dumay and soloists such as Zakir Hussain and Maria João Pires, and toured Switzerland and Russia. It has launched a school to train future musicians and created several avenues for people to understand and appreciate western classical music more. As India’s only professional symphony orchestra, it has accomplished so much in so little time. Friend and fan of the SOI, Anil Dharker recounts what the orchestra has come to mean to Mumbai.

- Anil Dharker

This happened four years ago, 15 minutes before the first concert of the Symphony Orchestra of India's (SOI) 13th season was to begin. I headed for – where else? – the food counter at the centre of Jamshed Bhabha Theatre's lobby to get my fix of the NCPA’s cold coffee. Soon I was joined by an old friend whose name I shall keep to myself. “Why does the NCPA spend so much money on the orchestra?” he said in a tone that was more of an assertion than a query. “Well,” I said, “You are here, aren’t you?” “Um,” he said, “That's because the programme is so good.” It was. Christoph Poppen was to conduct the SOI in an all-Beethoven selection – the Leonore Overture, the Violin Concerto (soloist Lena Neudauer) and the Pastoral Symphony. “So it's for Beethoven that you are here?” I asked. “Yes and no,” he said grudgingly. “I come for other concerts, too – the orchestra sounds pretty good.”

There you are then: the reluctant attendee. The moot question, though, is how do you get an orchestra to sound “pretty good” even to a trenchant critic when it is still in its infancy? And how do you get it to sound the way the SOI does now, when it is part of the Indian cultural landscape in which western classical music is only a blip on the horizon? For the answer, we must ask the trinity of Khushroo N. Suntook, Marat Bisengaliev and Zane Dalal who, as chairman, music director and associate music director respectively, control its destiny.