Luis Dias
I can’t remember the last time we had a high-standard solo cello recital in Goa. Having four cellists, in the form of a cello quartet, the Quartetto Chiado from Lisbon therefore made it a musical phenomenon rarer than the appearance of Haley’s comet.
As an impresario of western classical music concerts myself, I know first-hand the logistics involved. Cellists of that calibre would necessarily have to play on their own precious instruments, which cannot be entrusted to airport baggage-handlers and cargo holds, and would therefore entail an extra seat on the airplanes.
So we’re looking at eight international and domestic flight costs, round-trip, hotel stay and performance fee. It’s not viable for me to organise, especially if it is non-ticketed, and even then, one would barely recover any expenses, given the dismal turnout for any classical music concert here that isn’t free (we Goans love to claim to love western classical music, but won’t put our money where our mouth is). So kudos to the organisers for pulling off this rare feat.
Barring a tiny handful of genuine western classical music lovers, the rest that do show up in Goa only do so if they or their friends, relatives or caste peers are connected to the event either on stage or behind the scenes, and/or the event is free, especially if ‘high-profile’ (“see and be seen”).
Goa’s much-hyped ‘love’ of classical music is just lip service, pure unadulterated hypocrisy. But hope springs eternal; it must do if we want to expand our audience base.
In neighbouring Mumbai, just a short flight away, at the NCPA (National Centre for the Performing arts), another edition (its 28 since it began in 2008!) of the Arties festival concluded at the beginning of this month, a two-day feast of chamber works that included, among other works, Beethoven: String Quartet No. 7 in F major, Op. 59, No. 1 “Razumovsky” and Mozart: String Quintet in C major, KV 515.
Had I not been recuperating from surgery, I would have been there, not because I love travelling to Mumbai (I don’t) but because I miss high-quality music-making so much.
The Arties festival has graced Mumbai and Pune twice a year for almost two decades. I spoke long ago to its curator, cellist Gauthier Herrmann about the logistics of getting them regularly to Goa. And the truth is, all musicians would love to visit and perform in our lovely state… provided basic expenses (travel, accommodation, performance fee) are sorted.
The Arties family of musicians “includes graduates from the greatest European conservatoires who have won numerous international awards.”
The NCPA also has an excellent ‘Masterworks of Chamber Music’ series featuring musicians of the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) curated by SOI Music Director Marat Bisengaliev and Bombay Goan-origin Ralph de Souza, former violinist of the Endellion String Quartet. It should be logistically even simpler to put Goa on their tour circuit map.
It is so important for our youth to have such world-class role models to listen to, emulate and aspire to, early in life. The default benchmark here is abysmally low.
If Goa has just one decent publicly accessible performance space with a flattering acoustic and an in-house concert grand piano, half the battle is won. It doesn’t even need to have a very large capacity.
Also, couldn’t some time be found for these extraordinary Quartetto Chiado musicians to do some teaching and build bridges for music education in the future between Goa and Portugal? Especially, since I realised, in the short time I spoke with them after the concert, that they are all passionate about music education, and also because instruction in cello is in crying need of support in Goa?
One of the works the Quartetto Chiado performed was ‘Moonlight Serenade’, a Glenn Miller classic arranged beautifully for cello quartet by Pedro Serra e Silva. I stepped out after the concert to gaze, as if on cue, at a lovely full moon casting a silvery glow on the Old Goa heritage landscape. It was quite magical.
Six years ago, under the auspices of the Fundação Oriente, Silva worked with cello students at the Kala Academy and our music charity Child’s Play India Foundation (CPIF) for a few days. At that time, a film was shot (still accessible on YouTube) asserting that Silva had come “not to
play but to create a group of cello teachers.”
To be fair, this pie-in-the-sky claim was not made by Silva but by the filming crew. Silva knows well that teachers cannot sprout in days like magic beans in ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.
If anything, the situation has worsened since then. Cellists now are being ‘imported’ from elsewhere in India or abroad for a concert, at considerable expense, rather than having a cohort of good cellists here. We could have this if we collectively invest in long-term music education in addition to just staging concerts and then having ignorant toadying cronies crow about a western classical music ‘Renaissance’ in the media.
Imagine not having homegrown physicians and surgeons of the calibre of Dr Guruprasad Naik and Dr Bossuet Afonso, but having to ‘import ‘them from the rest of India or abroad for a medical camp from time to time! Would this have been called a ‘Renaissance’ in medicine or surgery? Only a fool would think so. But no-one demurs when such madcap claims are made about western classical music in Goa.
Lisbon has a “social intervention through music” programme, Orquestra Geração, begun in 2007, just two years before our similarly-driven CPIF, now 15 years old. Creating a robust music education partnership between Goa and Portugal is very much within the realm of possibility, if we truly want it and work towards it.
It would be a truly beautiful musical olive branch connecting Portugal to Goa, to quote the lyric of stirring encore from Alentejo (‘Ó rama, ó que lindarama’) played by Quartetto Chiado.
(Dr Luis Dias is a physician, musician, writer and founder of Child’s Play India Foundation. He blogs at luisdias.wordpress.com)