Breaking Barriers: The SOI Chamber Orchestra’s Expanding Horizons

It is with certain expectations that aficionados and amateur listeners of Western classical music enter the hallowed halls of the NCPA— the ultimate stop in the quest to find virtuoso symphonic music in Mumbai, home to the first and only professional symphony orchestra in India. As the music envelopes its concert halls, the experience that this unique haven for classical music in the country offers tends to surpass those expectations. Yet, who has ever progressed by being inside the safety of four walls? The SOI Chamber Orchestra, the resident ensemble of the Symphony Orchestra of India, founded by Mr. Khushroo N. Suntook, Chairman, NCPA and violin virtuoso Marat Bisengaliev, is embracing the universal appeal of classical music by taking it out of the NCPA campus and into places it has never been to before. 

As NCPA@thePark returns for its third year with promising concerts and the chamber orchestra continues to tour places fresh and familiar, its resident musicians reveal the process behind making Western classical music accessible to audiences across Mumbai and beyond. 

An intimate inclusivity

On 15th and 16th November, the SOI Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Barbara Popławska, returned to the Natarani Amphitheatre at the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad after their soldout concerts in 2018 and 2023. This time, it was the works of Sibelius, Mozart and Bach which reverberated through the earthen walls of the beloved performance space.

Bianca Mendonca, General Manager of the SOI, assures us that through proactive efforts, the idea of a chamber orchestra and its audience has come far from its historical image of an ensemble performing for royal patrons in a small room. The intimacy, and as a result, a palpable exclusivity of those enclosed spaces has been replaced by the orchestra’s growing reach that transcends the concert hall. 

The oldest manifestation of this mission is the SOI@Prithvi series under which the chamber orchestra performs on the revered stage of the Prithvi Theatre in Juhu on every second Monday of the month. This partnership, which is more than a decade old, has created an entirely new demographic of regular concertgoers at the other end of the city. Celebrations for the Prithvi Festival 2024 included a special performance by the musicians of the SOI on 11th November, featuring works by Mozart, Sibelius, Iturralde and Shostakovich.

For many listeners, these concerts, stripped of the formality associated with classical performances, represent a novel experience. Distinguishing between audiences back home who know their music and have been attending concerts by the SOI since it was established in 2006 and those who are new to the fold, Mendonca says about the latter, “They’re younger, passionate and admittedly curious about the kind of music we play.”

Similarly, when recreational parks transform into open-air performing arts venues for the NCPA@ thePark series, strict concert etiquette takes a back seat for the evening, as “kids walk right up to the musicians after the performance, and [audiences] clap, hum along, dance and visibly interact with the music.”

While the symphony orchestra attracts world-class musicians to add to its international acclaim, select musicians as part of the chamber orchestra form a compact size of about 25 to 30 members. Throughout the year, they dedicate their time to not only honing their craft but also to cultivating in India what the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s famed Artistic Director Richard Tognetti calls a lean-forward audience—a bold, inquisitive group of people who are far from passive consumers. 

A purposeful engagement

The orchestra has brought Beethoven, Brahms and Tchaikovsky to children across private and municipal schools, and NGOs. For a feat like this, reaching beyond a stage that is built for orchestral music poses a daunting task. For most adults in India, let alone kids, the not-meant-for-all reputation of classical music precedes its repertoire.

Programming takes a lot of time and thought. While lighter spins on concertos and playful interpretations of Hollywood theme music and Bollywood songs become an easy answer for engagement, an undiscovered composition often arises from this melange to please the most uninitiated of listeners. For Alex Iurushkin, Orchestra Inspector and saxophonist of the SOI, the idea is to entice, enthuse and then enlighten the audience, be it with a trio, quartet or a larger group. “Iconic arrangements from the Western canon,” he says, “especially Mozart and Beethoven, are so familiar to listeners of any genre of music that even if you think you haven’t heard the music, you will recognise it somehow.”

For the musicians, these experiences become a testament to their success back home and overseas. Iurushkin, who hails from Russia, finds that performing in a country like India grants him a kind of freedom that is absent from playing in countries where Western classical music is a bigger part of the cultural fabric. There is no place for pressure, as “people [here] are open to everything.”

When the SOI Chamber Orchestra performed the works of Elgar and Jenkins under the leadership of SOI Music Director Marat Bisengaliev at the Vano Sarajishvili Tbilisi State Conservatoire Grand Hall in Georgia, in collaboration with The Tbilisi State Chamber Orchestra, “Georgian Sinfonietta,” on 5th October, the audience was overwhelmed by what they heard. This was the chamber orchestra’s international debut even as the Symphony Orchestra of India has toured the UK, Russia, Switzerland and the Middle East. For Kalyanee Mujumdar, a violinist who joined the SOI as a trainee musician in 2021, this exchange was a memorable one. “The response was incredible,” she recalls. “After each piece, we were met with a heartfelt encore.”

Expanding horizons 

Like Mujumdar, the students of the academy by the SOI exhibit a passion for music that is met with professional guidance under the supervision of Bisengaliev. Currently at the NCPA campus, five pupils are being taught by Iurushkin. The SOI Music Academy offers regular opportunities for performances in a range of professional settings, including the SOI Academy Orchestra, SOI Academy Chorus, SOI concerts and solo opportunities. Ayaan Deshpande, a 10-year-old budding pianist and a gifted student of the academy under the tutelage of Aida Bisengalieva, has consistently left audiences in awe with his rendition of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 and other works. In his most recent performances, he joined the chamber orchestra at the Prithvi Festival and in Ahmedabad as the soloist for the evening.

No doubt, the unconventional dais of an open-air park is as much of a learning space for these budding musicians as the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre. Amidst all the buzzing, honking, clapping and crashing waves, the musicians and the listeners weave together melodies Concerts by the SOI Chamber Orchestra at parks around Mumbai have been well received The performance in Georgia included works by Elgar and Jenkins unbound by time and borders. 

By Neelakshi Singh. This piece was originally published by the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai, in the December 2024 issue of ON Stage – their monthly arts magazine.