TWIN CITIES PIANO FESTIVAL 2017

A Celebration of Music Played on Piano

     Hyderabad Western Music Foundation, Musee Musical and Vidyaranya School, whose hallways and playgrounds are imbued with the sound of music, created this two day ‘Twin Cities Piano Festival 2017’ on the 11th and 12th of November.

     The 'Twin Cities Piano Festival 2017' was really a tribute to pluralism and the composite culture of the twin cities of Hyderabad & Secunderabad. It was also a tribute to the parents of music students, and music teachers, proving that the people of the Twin cities appreciate and encourage good music, even music that is not rooted in local culture.

     Hyderabad Western Music Foundation and Musee Musical were very clear on why this was called a Piano festival. It is a festival because it was not a competition; it was a celebration of the music played on a Piano. And why piano? Why not keyboard? Because the Piano is an acoustic, wooden musical instrument that produces a sound in which the tone colour and timbre is natural and rich. It is the true instrument to bring out the beauty of Western Classical music. A Yamaha Grand Piano was provided for the festival by Musee Musical (Western Musical Instruments and Music education), to celebrate their 175th year in the service of music.

     Western classical music, as we call it, can be described as ‘art’ music that stands the test of time and remains relevant to generations after it has been composed. It is music that’s been composed and written in music notation so that musicians can play it by reading the musical notation, and so Western Classical music, or, really, all Classical music, ‘Carnatic’ and’ Hindustani’ Classical music is played and listened to for centuries after being composed, just as plays by Kalidasa or Shakespeare are ‘classics’ because they are still read, performed and enjoyed even today, centuries after they were written.

     So, the music of Western Classical composers such as J.S Bach (1685-1750), W.A. Mozart (1756-1791), F. Schubert (1797-1827) and F. Lizst (1811-1886), live on even today, and pieces by these composers amongst other older and more recent composers, were performed by the young pianists/musicians on the 12th of November.

Day Two - Grand Finale of the Piano Festival

     The 18 pianists selected out of 42 who auditioned, displayed their musical abilities on the piano on the 12th of November. And it was impressive to hear so many young piano students aged between 7 and 16 show an interested audience how well they could play.

     It was such great mix of young people and the names of the 18 pianists that played showed how music brings together people of different communities, and regional cultures.

     The order of the young pianists who played, according to the programme, was: Samuel A. Marcus 30 (announced as a special guest), Vivek Mathur - 15, Ananda Gopalakrishnan - 11, Akundi Indravandith Karthikeya - 11, Rushabh Musthyala - 16, Lakshay B. - 12, Samyuktha Nandineni - 13, Dhriti Agarwal - 14 & Omi Vegada (four hands), Bindu Sravanthi - 16, P. Vishal Reddy - 14, Kshittiesh Bharadwaj - 15,& Khiyati Bharadwaj,  Kashvi Aggarwal - 7, P. Harshith Reddy - 13, Ananya Achanta - 13, Christine Grace Khumuckcham - 14, Devulapalli Sai Sri Vaishnavi - 13, Yash Agarwal -13,  Saketh Ram Josyabhatla - 15.  
     You can hear the whole evenings performances here on youtube:-  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xh5PcTm3UjY

     Music is the greatest communication in the world and these young musicians were so proficient; of course, some more so than others - a few showed so much promise that it looks like there will be more concert pianists from India in the making - so that we in the audience marvelled at their gift of music. Both Mamta & Jagruti of Musee Musica, and Joe Koster of Hyderabad Western Music Foundation acknowledged that it is the parents and teachers of these musically endowed young musicians who have to be lauded, for recognising the children’s need for music and for encouraging them to learn, practice and develop their talent. 
Day One The Concert Pianists of the Piano Festival

     We will now come back to the first day of the Piano Festival, the 11th of November 2017. As part of the two day piano festival, two judges who were brought in from Ahmadabad and Mumbai to audition and select the pianists for the 12th of November, performed a selection of classical pieces on the 11th November.

     The musicians were Shantanu Patel, a concert pianist from Ahmedabad who has returned from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with a Masters of Music (MU) in performance and conducting, he is also an B.A. (Hons.) in music, specialising in performance, from Middlesex University, London. Cecil Vineet is a composer orchestrator, singer/songwriter, with a Masters degree in scoring for Film, Television and Video games from the Berklee College of Music, Boston, he also holds a Licentiate Diploma in Piano performance.

     Though I love classical music, I am not a musician enough, or expert enough, to tell whether the pianist interprets a composer well or not, I will only say this about Shantanu Patel’s playing, that he plays very naturally, fluidly and effortlessly, he could bang the hell out of the piano and then play as softly as a whispered secret, he balanced lyricism and piano gymnastics skilfully, yet captured the sentiment of all the pieces he played.

    Shantanu Patel began the evenings programme with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Twelve Variations on theme "Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman"(English: “Ah, Mother, if I could tell you”), K.265, based upon a French folk song.

    Mozart’s work began by stating the basic theme, the familiar tune “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and then with such a simple theme, Mozart creates variations of the theme with modifications and embellishment in rhythms, harmonies and texture and yet we recognise the melody throughout. Mozart's genius is mind blowing.

     Next he played Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31 by Frédéric
Chopin, composed and published in 1837. Chopin, many feel, is the best composer for the piano. Shantanu Patel introduced this piece by saying that though the composition is in B flat minor, most of the work is written in D flat major.

     The third work Shantanu played was Prelude in G minor, Op. 23, No. 5, by Sergei Rachmaninoff, which he completed in 1901. The pianist displayed speed and subtlety both in the very intense fast sections and also in the calm ones!

    Shantanu Patel concluded his programme with Prelude pour le piano, L. 95, a three movement piano suite, Prelude, Sarabande and Toccata composed  by Claude Debussy, one of the most innovative composers who completed this work in 1903. Prelude pour le piano did not seem easy to play but was played in a way that seemed effortless.

     Cecil Vineet Abhishek, the modest and self effacing musician, in his 

introduction, said, he had added orchestral accompaniment to Prelude in C-sharp minor Op. 3, No. 2, one of Sergei Rachmaninoff's most famous Piano compositions, electronically, as is done in many movie and television serials. He then displayed his skill in not only playing the piano, but in programming, scoring and arranging the Rachmaninoff Prelude in C-sharp minor in a tasteful arrangement like a Concerto for piano and orchestra.

     The programme concluded with a surprise, with both the pianists getting together to play a four hand piece.    

     It is not common for the Twin Cities to hear a bona fide concert pianist play live, and so this was a rare auditory treat for this writer, and for all the other Western Classical music enthusiasts, thanks to the ‘Twin Cities Piano Festival 2017’ and the phenomenal effort put in by Joe Koster the chief organiser on behalf of the Hyderabad Western Music Foundation.

Pratap Antony / 15/11/2017/HWMF www.hydmusic.com

FEELING THE JOYOUS ENERGY OF FRESH YOUNG MUSICAL TALENT

 Lighting a path to a bright musical future
    I had the great pleasure of being in the audience at a very special evening of choral music by a choir of young people aged between, perhaps, 10 and 15, who presented the audience with a beautiful gift of lively and vibrant music.

     This 16 or 17 voice choir that brought so much joy to the audience was ‘Harmony Children’s Chorus’ from Bangalore. The choir consisted of students of Sandra Oberoi’s ‘Harmony’ Music School in Bangalore.
     Sandra Oberoi is a Western vocalist and music educator who is responsible for fostering the talent of these young musicians, and who, I’m sure, inculcated the young choristers with the astonishing self confidence that they displayed; and invested the singers with good intonation, verve, understanding, and the ability to sing well beyond their years. The natural clarity of the children’s voices while they shared their joy in making music gave us in the audience even greater joy.
    But, I’m getting ahead of myself, the evenings programme on the 5^th of November 2017 at Vidyaranya School was organised by the Hyderabad Western Music Foundation and Harmony-The Music School (Bangalore), and began with a short recital by the Deccan Voices, a twin cities based group of enthusiastic 

singers from a "medley" of backgrounds and cultures brought together by their shared passion for vocal music. 

The Deccan Voices sang, ‘The Music is Always There With You’ by the eminent composer, John Rutter, followed by ‘Suo Gan’, a Welsh lullaby. They then performed four songs from the Oscar winning movie ‘La La Land’, the songs were ‘City of Stars’, ‘Another Day of Sun’, ‘Audition - Fools who Dream’ and ‘Someone in the Crowd’. Kudo’s to the Deccan Voices for performing without looking at the music sheets and with minimal direction from Joe Koster the choir director who accompanied the choir on keyboard and who had also trained the choir for performance.
You can hear the Deccan voices on these youtube videos
Youtube - City of Stars from La La Land https://youtu.be/XIb1JOeXj-8
Another Day of Sun from La La Land https://youtu.be/BjgrApar0x0
Someone in the Crowd from La La Land https://youtu.be/laLNMzKB1L8
Audition – The Fools Who Dream from La La Land https://youtu.be/vAdnyCnMnQI
The Music’s always there with you – John Rutter https://youtu.be/fnpeQc-Gs9I
Suo Gan – Traditional Welsh Lullaby – Mark Burrows https://youtu.be/R4kq2S3fgwQ
     Let’s get back to the main event, ‘Harmony Children’s Chorus’ from Bangalore; they performed a selection of ten songs, the programming was well thought out and the songs were interestingly performed, the talented musicians

/vocalists sang with zest and exciting musicality, the sound was always clean, the diction clear and they kept the rhythms strong, spicy and accurate while maintaining pitch with amazing ease and composure. 

     All the songs were sung from memory. The children in the choir were so musically gifted that it was hard to believe that they were just school children. And so we must  give credit to their teacher Sandra Oberoi for song selection, programming of the music, for her wonderful attention to detail; for arranging some of the songs and for training and bringing out the children’s talent and musicianship and preparing them perfectly to express their joy in making music without inhibition, and for making them shine like the little stars that they were, so that we in the audience could experience their musical gifts through their smiling eyes, swaying limbs and their heartfelt singing. . 

     Worth mentioning is that Sandra Oberoi had designed this programme, so that every singer got to sing either a solo, or be part of a duo or trio along with the choir to display their talent. The eminent pianist, Irina Tsarenko accompanied The Harmony Children’s Chorus. Since all the soloists and the chorus performed much more captivatingly than I ever expected, I will not describe how they sang each song, suffice it to say they displayed impressive musicianship. This is the programme in the order that they performed.

The first song they performed was Flower Duet – This pretty song, composed by Leo Delibes for the opera, ‘Lakme’, was sung by two sopranos, a boy and a girl along with the chorus. They next performed Pie Jesu from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Reqiem. This too, was sung by two sopranos and chorus. Next was Lord make Me An Instrument of Thy peace - this acapella (unaccompanied) piece by Michael John Trotta is based on a French poem that used soft harmony and counterpoint brought out the beauty of this song. Tomorrow, from the musical 'Annie', and arranged by Sandra Oberoi, was sung by a soloist and 
chorus. The well known song  I Could Have Danced All Night, from My Fair Lady, was arranged by Sandra Oberoi for soloists and chorus. Memory - from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s ‘Cats’. Sandra Oberoi expressively rendered this song 

accompanied by Irina Tsarenko, and listening to this song moved me inside out, despite having heard the song by many singers both live, recorded and on youtube by the original cast of ‘Cats’, so, this became the most beautiful rendition of the song I’ve ever heard. Rise Up by Swiss DJ and composer Yves LaRock was next by soloist and chorus. An Evening Prayer from Hansel Gretel  and opera by 19^th century composer Engelbert Humperdink. Next was the charming song How Far I’ll Go from the Disney animated movie ‘Moana’ again for soloists and chorus. It was this tune I think, which had a young little dancer in a tutu dance, while this song was being sung. It was endearing, to say the least. The next song, Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better, from the movie ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ was rendered so dramatically and well by the two fiercely competitive singers that the audience was thoroughly amused and entertained. The song Chili Con Carne – was next, by Swedish composer, Anders Edenroth, who sings in the acapella singing group ‘Real Group’. This song is a simple recipe for a Mexican dish that is insanely hard to sing, especially to maintain its rhythmic vitality and tempo, and more than ever while dancing, which the Chorus did so well. The last part of the set was called Bollywood Medley, this medley of ‘Bollywood’ songs was arranged by Sandra Oberoi and was good fun.

     Sandra Oberoi and the Harmony Children’s Chorus from Bangalore are talented and committed singers that brought to us the freshness of young musical minds that are lighting a path to a bright musical future.
     You can hear Sandra Oberoi's Harmony Children's Chorus - the whole concert here: -  Youtube https://youtu.be/cMSjtmHcyuc

     The Hyderabad Western Music Foundation (HWMF) once again brought the Twin Cities a good musical experience. The indefatigable organiser-in-chief, Joe Koster, founder director of HWMF, and musical director of Deccan Voices, thanked the Vidyaranya School for supporting HWMF and the Deccan Voices, who use the school premises for practices and for concerts, for their quiet but resolute support to music in the twin cities.

Written for Hyderabad Western Music Foundation www.hydmusic.com