Harmonising Horizons: SOI Music Academy's National Collaboration

April is almost synonymous with exams. For students graduating, it is an emotional experience marked by a sense of accomplishment as well as excitement about what is to come. Similar emotions run through the NCPA’s SOI Music Academy every April when students graduate and perform at their annual concert. 

Launched in 2012 under the supervision of SOI Music Director Marat Bisengaliev, the academy offers an advanced level of music training to children. Inspired by the Russian conservatoire method, the curriculum includes substantial one-to-one lessons on the student’s primary instrument, second-study piano lessons, music history and theory, group singing teaching via the Solfeggio method, as well as training in orchestral playing and chamber music by teachers who are professional musicians trained across Europe and members of the SOI.

Each year, as part of the annual concert, the graduating batch performs with all other students who make up the SOI Academy Orchestra while soloists from the academy also perform with the SOI Chamber Orchestra. Talking about the academy, Bisengaliev stresses the importance of a good teacher. “The relationship between a student and a teacher has to be a balance of harmony,” he says. He also acknowledges that being a good musician does not necessarily translate to being a good teacher. “So, every year, the exam is also for the musicians who teach them.”

Three students from the academy—two violists and one violinist—will appear for their examination this year, which will be followed by the annual concert to be conducted by Bisengaliev. The maestro tells us that working with the children’s orchestra is one of the highlights of his multi-pronged engagement with the SOI. The upcoming concert will also see the academy’s alumni return to the NCPA to perform. “Yohan Pastala-Gupte, a trumpet player who enrolled at the academy when he was 10 and pursued higher studies in music in Germany upon graduating, is coming back, as is Nyra Jain, now a student at The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. She will help out with the kids’ orchestra and also perform with the SOI Chamber Orchestra,” informs Bisengaliev. In the larger scheme of things, he wishes that the graduate students come back to the SOI as full-time musicians, thereby enhancing local talent in the orchestra.

In addition to classical repertoire, the SOI Academy Orchestra will be performing music from popular films and for the first time, students from different cities of India will be performing with this orchestra at their annual concert. 

A musical collaboration

As part of the new initiative, 15 students from Pune, Goa and Kochi will be arriving at the NCPA this month. “This is something we have always been thinking of— taking the experience of the music education offered by the academy beyond the NCPA,” shares Bisengaliev. The children from Kochi are students of Carol George, who worked with the SOI Chamber Orchestra as a musician in residence and now comes to Mumbai to perform during the SOI seasons. The students from Pune are trained by Rama Chobhe, a certified teacher of violin in the Suzuki method. Those arriving from Goa belong to the Child’s Play India Foundation. The students have been selected after multiple rounds of rigorous auditions.

“It’s not every day that you get to share the stage with peers from other schools. I think many students will feel excited about the collaboration, especially as it adds an element of novelty and energy to the experience,” says Margarita Gapparova, cellist and head teacher of the SOI Music Academy. While she feels there is a sense of camaraderie that emerges from being together on a shared platform, she is aware that a few students might feel anxious about working with people they don’t know. “But that’s also part of the fun—learning how to collaborate and make the most of that experience.”

The NCPA has an ongoing association with Child’s Play India Foundation in Goa. For the last three years, musicians of the SOI have been conducting an annual music camp for students of the 16-year-old foundation that works towards bringing social empowerment to disadvantaged children through music education. Dr. Luis Dias, Founder and Project Director of the foundation, is excited about the students performing with the SOI Music Academy. “I’m hoping this could be the start of a real solid youth orchestra movement which the SOI can be in the vanguard of and that this will become the first of many more such events and collaborations,” he adds. 

A rewarding journey

Out of the three students set to graduate this year, viola player Aliza Jetha has completed the 11-year course at the academy. “Saying bye to the comfort and familiarity of going to the academy is difficult but knowing that I have been given the foundation to pursue what I love the most is a great feeling. I have truly grown up here and I attribute a large chunk of who I am to my experiences at the music school. It has taught me life lessons in commitment, friendship and prioritising,” says the 18-year-old. Currently majoring in music composition and economics at Occidental College, a private liberal arts college in Los Angeles, Jetha recalls that travelling to Abu Dhabi in 2018 to play a concert for the royal family is one of the fondest memories of her time here.

As another batch prepares to graduate, Gapparova cannot help but feel “incredibly proud of their accomplishments.” She ends with a heartfelt message to the students, “The world needs your unique voice and vision. Whether you’re performing, composing, teaching or doing something entirely different with your music, your creativity has the power to touch many lives.”

The SOI Music Academy concert will be presented on 13th April at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre.

By Nidhi Lodaya. This piece was originally published by the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai, in the April 2025 issue of ON Stage – their monthly arts magazine.