Growing up, as Ashley do Rego held his violin in hand, he had two
dreams. One was to study music in Austria, where Mozart was born and studied
music, and the second dream was to play in a Disney orchestra. He fulfilled
both these childhood dreams and is now back to Goa after four years of
completing his musical education in Austria.
Ashley started playing the violin at the age of 6 in Kala
Academy under the tutelage of Teresa Figueiredo. After completing his
Licentiate at the Trinity College London, he was teaching violin in Kala
Academy for nine years. As a part of the Indian National Youth Orchestra, he
travelled to different parts of the world and was introduced to
Switzerland-based Radovan Lorkovic through another noted Goan, Victor Rangel
Ribeiro. He started classes with Radovan, a noted violinist, who was an
assistant to the celebrated violinist and pedagog, Max Rostal.
After living in Switzerland for eight months, Ashley decided to
move to Austria. “I wanted to get a job in violin and in order to teach in
Austria, you need a pedagog degree. I was late for my admissions, but when I
contacted Wolfram Wincor, the head of the string department at the Anton
Brucker University, he told me to audition the very next day. He asked me to
play a piece that was prescribed in the program, then to play something extra
and finally, he made me play the whole concerto. After a discussion with his
faculty, he said that I’m selected and I will be his student. He was very kind
to me,” reminisces Ashley.
The Anton Bruckner University is one of seven Austrian
Universities for Music, Drama and Dance, and one of four universities in Linz.
In 2014, Ashley joined the university and completed his Bachelor Programme in
Pedagogy and recital bachelors for soloist also known as Konzertfach. “In the
first three years of my konzertfach, I would be in university from 7am to 10
pm, like on a mission from Monday to Friday. As a university student, you are
obliged to play concerts because you we need to collect ECTS credits every
month to pass the semester. It was a lot of fun because my first year teacher
made me the concert master for the university orchestra and I got to play a lot
over there,” explains Ashley.
“They expect you to be in top shape while you are doing your
theoretical subjects. We had to write our thesis in German and even the medium
of instruction is German. Like many students, even those who come from other
European countries, we had to be on an express lane of learning the language
and the syllabus. Every foreign student who goes to a non- English speaking
country, learning the language, doing the paperwork right so you don’t make a
mistake, is a huge challenge. Music becomes the easiest part of our life as you
are coming back to something that you have always been doing,” says Ashley, who
was the only Indian in the university. Ashley now teaches at the
Landesmusikschule, Upper Austria and in his spare time, he also composes music
for interdisciplinary artistic performances.
He is also part of
Synchron Stage Vienna which is a recording orchestra and records for studios
like Marvel, Disney, Netflix and Warner Brothers. “I have performed with the
over 70 member orchestra for films like ‘Ant- Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’,
‘Top Gun Maverick’, ‘Cinderella’, and tv series like ‘Lord Of The Rings; The
Rings Of Power’ and Marvel series like ‘Falcon and the Winter Soldier’,
‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ and ‘Moon Knight’. We also play for Indian films,
the most recent one being ‘Brahmastra’,” says Ashley.
He further adds,
“Most of the time, I don’t know which movie we are playing for because we have
to sign a non-disclosure documents as it is very secretive and they don’t want
any information out. You need to audition, play a piece of a university level,
you have site reading, the judge has a metronome and you have to play exactly
with the click, which is played. Music producers contact the contractor of the
orchestra and he gives us the scores. We always have the music composer in our
ear and he gives the instructions. If the music is composed by Hanz Zimmer, he
will be based in the US, but he will tell us about the scenes and the sounds
for the emotions that are required.”
Ashley says that he
owes his success to a lot of Goans who helped his on this musical journey.
“Musicians and the music community is really supportive to me. In 2012, after I
won the David Menezes National Violin competition, a Goan couple, who were
music connoisseurs said they would sponsor my education only if I got into a
university. They sponsored my education when I got admissions into the Anton
Bruckner University. You have to be dedicated and sacrifice too. I sacrificed
my government permanent job. I started from ground zero in Austria. In European
countries, you have to be seen and you cannot say no to a concert otherwise
they forget about you. You have to play difficult pieces, artistes do have a
challenge to show themselves,” he says.
Back in Goa, Ashley
will be leading the workshop for string ensemble (violin, viola, cello,
double-bass) hosted by Child’s Play India Foundation. The workshop will run
from February 13-18 at the Foundation’s premises in St Inez. He will then
perform with Mumbai-based pianist Nadine Crasto on February 16 at 6.30 pm at
Menezes Braganza Hall, Panjim. The concert is in aid of music education charity
Child’s Play India Foundation.
Dr Luis Dias, founder
of Child’s Play India Foundation and organiser of the concert says, “We
are happy to host Ashley do Rego and Nadine Crasto. This is the first
post-pandemic recital we are organising, the first of many more. We are
extremely grateful to Christopher Gomes and Furtados Music for their unstinting
patronage of the cause of music in Goa for the past several decades.”
Ashley’s
future project will be in Japan. “The project is titled ‘My Skin’, a collective
together with a dancer and an actress and me as a musician. It focuses on the
challenges of skin colour and how to speak about the colour of the skin. I am
Indian, the dancer is Polish and the actress is Indo- German, it is important
to understand the challenge of dealing with identity crisis,” concludes Ashley.
