I have been dabbling with this mystical and underrated phenomenon called ‘Conducting’ since 2006. As a school boy at St. Stanislaus, Bandra, I conducted my schoolmates for carol singing at homes for the aged. While studying at St. Xavier’s College, I put up choirs for carol competitions and religious services, also gathering student musicians to accompany. My choice of out-of-the-box repertoire came from long hours of online searches and emails to composers and publishers begging for free music.
My work was noticed in the USA and I received an invitation to apply to tour for 6 months with the Singers of United Lands in 2012. I got a chance to conduct choirs of all age groups, sizes, settings, regions and abilities. This is where I drew connections between music education and performance as a conductor. The next six years at the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai provided a chance to implement all this learning with a choir of a hundred 7 to 10 year-olds (working on children’s repertoire in over 50 different languages) and a choir of around seventy 13 to 18 year olds (singing anglican hymns, Christmas music as well as my compositions). I also scouted for student musicians to form ensembles to accompany these choirs.
As the next step on my journey, I started looking out for opportunities to get certified but could not spend time on a degree. A friend request on Facebook and a random post requesting mentorship in conducting resulted in a UK-based conductor, Manvinder Rattan inviting me to apply for a Conducting Course in the UK. After a few exchanges and exploring the possibilities, I applied and was accepted to the Intermediate 2 Conducting Course at the Sing For Pleasure (SfP) Summer School 2018. It was held at Keele University, Staffordshire, UK between August 11 and 19, 2018. My participation was made possible by the Neil Webster Music Trust UK and the Associazione Culturale Sarasvati, Italy to whom I am indebted.
Before arriving at the course, I was asked to prepare three pieces – The Angel Rolled the Stone (A Spiritual arranged by James Wild) and Amazing Grace (John Newton, Arranged by Steven Milloy) which I would be conducting and a study exercise – Deo Gratias (William Byrd). A guide to score markings and some course related guidelines got me ready.
I arrived at the beautiful Keele University campus and was welcomed with introductions, course expectations and fun warm up activities. The next day however, I was in for a shock when I had to sight sing a whole lot of repertoire for the concert in two days – Zelenka’s Magnificat, Rutter’s Five Childhood Lyrics, conducted by the tutors and rehearsed in two sessions of an hour each. At the same time, I had to sight sing the pieces conducted by the other conducting students in the Intermediate 2 course, which for my group included songs from the Heritage Book (SfP future publication) and An American Journey (Oxford University Press) as well as a Christmas Mass composed by Oliver Tarney. I had to give up some evening social activities and wake up earlier to work on preparing my scores in the expected way and try to tackle sight singing the bass lines, especially the motets with the Advanced Conducting Students by Bach and Buxtehude.
Post the concerts, we began working on the third piece. Mine, the William Byrd composition, I liked very much but did not know how to conduct. I prepared very well for that piece, using all the phrase markings and entry markings as taught. This piece was only for conducting study and was taken up by Manvinder Rattan. He praised me for my preparation and gave me a few tips. We then moved on to a large work commissioned especially for the Summer School – Greater Love: 12 Ways of Goodness – Music by Thomas Hewitt Jones and words by Jasmine Birtles. Sight Singing this modern work was a challenge for even the good sight singers. But I sailed through that concert which marked the end of the Summer School.
I am now looking ahead to my permanent move to Kalimpong and setting up an arts organisation there. I am also excited to take over as the Music Program Director at the Gandhi Ashram School where I will be conducting the school orchestras and the choirs. In November, I am conducting a workshop for vocal leaders and conducting my composition ‘The Goodwill Song’ for the Goodwill Week. Come January, I will conduct the Strings Orchestra for an exciting tour of five towns in the Hills of Darjeeling and Sikkim as well as a tour of Mumbai, through the Strings Concert Tour Project. Many more exciting collaborations and projects are already in the pipeline – that celebrate good music, bring people together, educate audiences and help me rediscover my passion all over again. Going back to Summer School? Definitely better prepared Sing For Pleasure style!