Dr. Luis Dias is a physician, musician, writer, history enthusiast and founder of Child's Play India Foundation www.childsplayindia.org. He blogs at www.luisdias.wordpress.com.
Music Education
Any violin student beyond a certain level will have heard of Kreutzer. His 42 etudes or caprices (42 études ou caprices) are almost a rite of passage, a core part of the teaching repertoire ever since their publication around 1796. I have my much-used copy from my student days, and
Know Your Composer
While we’re still in lockdown / curfew / restrictions / whatchamacallit, the rest of the world is slowly, cautiously, opening up. The Wigmore Hall London, widely regarded as one of the world’s leading centres for chamber music, threw open its doors to live audiences, “in line with Government guidelines.” One of
Know Your Composer
The celebrated Indian composer Vanraj Bhatia passed away on 7 May, just a few weeks shy of his 94th birthday. I listened and fell in love with Bhatia’s music without even realising it. I refer to the signature tune of the popular TV serial ‘Khandaan’, the ‘Liril’ soap advertisement
Know Your Composer
Despite the worsening coronavirus pandemic in India, the media circus over the Bengal elections has been so all-consuming that one hopes the birth centenary of Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992), one of its great sons of the soil doesn’t get forgotten. The 51st edition of IFFI
Know Your Composer
It was the birth centenary of larger-than-life Argentine tango composer, bandoneon player, and arranger Astor Piazzolla (11 March 1921 – 4 July 1992) last month.The Strad magazine carried a tribute article “How should we interpret tango music?” a guide to classically-trained violinists on how to tackle this music genre. Yet
Features
On 9 February 2021 the world of jazz bid a tearful goodbye to iconic jazz composer, keyboardist, bandleader, and occasional percussionist ‘Chick’ Corea (born Armando Anthony Corea), who died at 79 of cancer at his home in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, US. But like so many great musicians
Know Your Composer
Happy 250th birthday this Wednesday, 16 December 2020, Ludwig! The world had such great plans to celebrate this milestone, but a minuscule virus put paid to all that. My reading marathon on Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) in his birth sestercentennial year continues to throw up the most fascinating trivia about
Throwback Thursday
I think it fair to say my dad was something of a Wagner fan. He had books about him in German, underlined and marked, with his own remarks scrawled all over the pages, as my dad was wont to do to anything he read. And he had stacks of spools
Features
“From the minute a child is taught how to play an instrument, he’s no longer poor” Many years ago, soon after we had set up Child’s Play India Foundation, a music charity inspired hugely by the phenomenal success of Venezuela’s El Sistema movement, a wealthy Bombay socialite
Features
The death of English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Professor Stephen Hawking on 14 March shook the world. Last year, to celebrate his 75th birthday, his Cambridge college – Gonville & Caius – commissioned composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad to write a
Interviews
Maria Badstue had set aside all thoughts of her adoption from India. An invitation to conduct an opera in Mumbai made her confront her past. The Royal Opera House in Mumbai is poised to stage its first full-length Italian opera, Domenico Cimarosa’s comedy Il Matrimonio Segreto, with a run
Features
When we began our music charity for disadvantaged children Child’s Play India Foundation (www.childsplayindia.org), we made an appeal to the community to donate unused musical instruments to us. Seven years on, this is not as big a crunch as the need for more teachers to allow us
