On Sunday, 30th August, the Silver Songbirds, Bengaluru’s community choir for senior citizens, performed at the charity concert A Harmony of Hearts in Cooke Town.

The choir took to the stage for its second performance at KROSS (Karnataka Regional Organisation for Social Service) for a half-hour programme featuring a blend of timeless classics and regional favourites.

The Songbirds performed Ragtime Sing-Along, I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, Malaika (Swahili), Neera Bittu Nelada Mele (Kannada), Dingri Dingale (Tamil), Wouldn’t It Be Loverly, Edelweiss, Que Sera, Sera, and I Believe.

The group was formed in January 2026 by Ambassador Nirupama Rao and her husband Sudhakar Rao. A few months after its initiation, the Songbirds made its debut with a performance at Sabha Bengaluru in April 2026. Read about the performance here.

The concert raised funds in support of underprivileged children at Jnana Mandir, Kolbe Home, Ananda Sagara, and His Paradise. Choir members have expressed their gratitude, stating they feel privileged for being able to lend their voices to organisations dedicated to the welfare of children.

Directed by Juanita Jayant, the Silver Songbirds has grown to around 40 members who meet twice a month to rehearse a diverse repertoire spanning film songs, folk melodies, and music from across cultures and languages.

Read more about the Silver Songbirds here.

For those who would like to get in touch with the Silver Songbirds for performances, please send an email to: silversongbirdsofficial@gmail.com

The notion of a symphony orchestra comprising of South Asian musicians was conceived in 2013, while Ambassador Nirupama Rao was in conversation with Indian origin American conductor Viswa Subbaraman. The idea was tested in February 2018 when eight musicians of South Asian diaspora were brought together to perform with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka (SOSL) under Subbaraman’s baton in a concert titled Music Beyond Borders, marking Sri Lanka’s 70th independence anniversary. Later that year, after registration in July, the Foundation had its first major outreach with a five day workshop in Ooty, India, before the Orchestra was even assembled, where twelve young musicians from Afghanistan, India, Nepal and, Sri Lanka were guided by instructors from India and Sri Lanka.

The Foundation has since steadily built its identity through engaging musicians of South Asian heritage, commissioning original works that are inspired by South Asian culture and history, bridging the divide between Western and Eastern musical traditions and creating a musical future that reflects the true diversity of culture, tradition and its fusion across borders.

Past issues of Accord and the SASF website have listings of all the works performed by the orchestra in past performances. This issue discusses the works that truly define the identity of this orchestra.

Building A Tapestry of Orchestral Music

April 2019, Chiragh : The South Asian Symphony Orchestra made its debut at NCPA, in Mumbai, under the baton of conductor Viswa Subbaraman. The concert, ‘Chiragh’, titled after the Hindi word for a little lamp that lights the darkness, featured over 70 musicians from across five countries. The concert was dedicated to the victims of the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka, and featured major performers, each bringing their own individual style to the orchestra.

The Foundation’s ambition is to build a ‘South Asian Songbook’, that is, a compendium of orchestral repertoire out of the region’s heritage music. As part of this ongoing effort, the debut concert featured specially commissioned works Hamsafar, Bhadke, and Sanskrit invocation for peace Maitreem Bhajata.

Hamsafar, a word that translates to a travelling companion, was chosen to capture the spirit of people working and travelling together. The arrangement was specially commissioned for SASO by English composer and then faculty of the Afghan National Institute of Music in Kabul, Lauren Braithwaite. The work captures the spirit and diversity of South Asia, with tributes to every country in the region through the intertwining of folk and popular pieces of music, and the use of traditional instruments, including the santoor, rubab and tanbur arranged alongside traditional orchestral elements.

The work featured Aiyandiye from Sri Lanka, a song composed by legendary Sri Lankan musician Gunadasa Kapunge, the traditional Bengali folk song Allah Megh De, Narayan Gopal’s Nepalese composition Euto Manche Ko, India’s Meera Jot Hai Japani by legendary duo Shankar Jaikishan, the traditional Afghani melody Arsala Khan, traditional Bhutanese song Ta Zee Ling, Ashiq Hussain’s Lal Meri Pat Rakhiyo from Pakistan.

It remains a clear expression of SASF’s mission: to weave an orchestral tapestry from distinct national threads.

Bhadke, a work by New York based Indian-American composer Kamala Sankaram, is an orchestral reimagining of the 1951 Hindi film hit Shola Jo Bhadke from the film Albela. The melodic and rhythmic motifs of the original song were transcribed and re-contextualised until, in the composer’s own description, the orchestral writing comes to embody the energy of classic Bollywood.

Watch the full concert here.

October 2019, Peace Notes, From Gandhi to Beethoven : SASO’s second concert at JN Tata Auditorium in Bengaluru, under the baton of Alvin Arumugam, was a tribute to Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary. This was Arumugam’s first concert with SASO and he has been the conductor and music director ever since. Alvin earned his master’s degree in conducting from the Royal College of Music in London, England and holds a Masters of Music from Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music from the National University of Singapore. Having worked with acclaimed conductors Martyn Brabbins, Vasily Petrenko and Antonio Pappano, he has garnered international acclaim through his dynamic leadership and innovative programming, something that has had a major impact on the direction of SASO.

The concert’s programme explored the humanitarian connection between Gandhi and Beethoven, and the little known link between the two figures through Gandhi’s disciple Meera Behn, an admirer of Beethoven’s works. The programme paired Hamsafar and original music inspired by the life of Gandhi, Ideas of Freedom, composed by Indian-German pianist and composer Antonius Nazareth, featured alongside Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with guest Indian pianist Julian Clef.

Antonius Nazareth researched the specific music and bhajans that Gandhi loved, to ground his legacy into the composition. Indian classical motifs are woven through symphonic arrangement with the addition of a sitar played by Hafiz Bale Khan and tabla played by Prashant Harogeri. Ideas of Freedom is the first commission from SASF to ask a composer to create entirely new canon, as opposed to an arrangement of existing indigenous music.

July 2021, The Spirit of South Asia : While the pandemic halted live concertising, the Foundation’s third anniversary was celebrated on YouTube, with a digital ‘Geetanjali’, performed by soloists, featuring an eclectic programme that included Sinhala Baila rhythms to compositions by Debussy.

July 2022, Peace Notes, 75th Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav : The Foundation has also created a space for scholarly engagement alongside performance. Following the prolonged hiatus imposed by the pandemic, SASO presented the first in its Symphony Lecture Series, Music and Freedom: Sounds of a Border-Crossing Symphony, a lecture by Harvard Gardiner Professor of History, Sugata Bose, with a chamber recital following the lecture.

SASO returned to the stage at the end of the month with a Peace Notes concert in celebration of 75 years of Independence for India. The concert took place at the Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Concert Hall, with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as chief guest.

The programme included an arrangement by Matt Dunkley of A.R. Rahman’s The Cry of The Rose from the 1992 Hindi film Roja, took a detour to Europe with Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 and Brahms’ Academic Overture, before turning homeward to Svara-Yantra, a work by Shirish Korde, a composer of Indian ancestry who spent his early years in East Africa and moved to the US in 1965.

Svara-Yantra is a virtuosic violin and tabla concerto that mimics the traditional Hindustani Alap-Jor-Jhala-Gat format, meaning it starts with slow, unmetered, meditative lines that pull the listener in before building speed. First composed in 2005, the work blends Western symphonic structures with classical Indian motifs. Performed with guest violinist Priyanka Venkatesh, a Stanford and UCLA alum and Fulbright scholar, and guest tabla player Durairaj Chandrajith.

Peace Notes Programme Booklet Iic 2023

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March 2023, Peace Notes at the IIC : Presented as part of the Indian International Centre’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in New Delhi, Peace Notes marked the orchestra’s return to the capital with a programme that juxtaposed familiar orchestral repertoire with a newly commissioned work. The concert premiered Lauren Braithwaite’s Melodies from the Mountains, a medley inspired by folk and film melodies from India and Nepal, including music long associated with military and mountain traditions of the two countries. The programme also featured Beethoven’s buoyant Symphony No. 8, Vivaldi’s Winter from The Four Seasons, and Piazzolla’s Primavera Porteña, with violinist Raja Halder appearing as soloist.

However, an unexpected downpour midway through the evening forced the performance to move from the IIC’s open air lawns to an indoor venue, where musicians and audience regrouped and the concert was completed despite the interruption.

November 2024, Peace Notes, Solidarity at the Lotus Temple and IIC : SASO performed two concerts in the month of November 2024, the first at IIC on the 22nd, which featured the Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2 with Indian-American pianist Pallavi Mahidhara. Mahidhara is a Geneva International Piano Competition prizewinner and graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music. This concert also featured Chandrayaan, an original work composed by Aryaman Joshi, dedicated to India’s 2023 triumphant lunar landing — Chandrayaan-3’s touchdown near the Moon’s south pole, a first for any country. The composition was written in three sections for orchestra with tabla folded in. The first section carries the melody from Raga Desh, the raga from India’s Vande Mataram. This performance was India’s premiere of the work.

To listen to the composer’s recording of the work (not performed by SASO), click here.

The following evening, tenor Anando Mukerjee performed with the orchestra at the Lotus Temple Complex in New Delhi. Alongside Chandrayaan, the programme featured works by Beethoven and Mendelssohn, to Rodgers and Hammerstein.

August-November 2025, Opera and the Ninth : August 2025 featured an opera focused concert in Bengaluru, marking a new direction for the orchestra, and featured soprano Cheryl Bains and tenor Alok Kumar. Read about the concert’s programme is this past issue of Accord.

In November 2025, SASO staged Beethoven’s monumental ninth symphony in both Bengaluru and Chennai, bringing together more than 120 musicians and three choral partners, The Bangalore Men, Capella Bangalore and the Chennai Chorale, along with four operatic soloists, Tanisha Herbert, Anusha Merrin, Darwin Prakash and Amar Muchhala) in what SASF described as a call for solidarity.

The Bengaluru performance was staged at the Prestige Centre for Performing Arts, with Beethoven’s Symphony as the centrepiece of the concert. The programme also included a medley of Raj Kapoor classics to commemorate the centenary of the cinematic legend (with vocalists Vivaswath Rao and Payal John), orchestrated by Nipun Bhatnagar, a Carnatic Nottuswara composition by Muthuswami Dikshitar, arranged and orchestrated by Nipun Bhatnagar (with Carnatic vocalist Bhargavi Venkatram) and an orchestral Three in One by Ilaiyaraja, and the operatic aria Au Fond du Temple Saint by Bizet. The concert also debuted a reimagining of the film song Dingiri Dingale, orchestrated by Augustine Paul.

November 2025, SASF Lecture Series : The Foundation presented the second of its Lecture Series in November 2025 with Professor Katherine Butler Schofield’s lecture, Strings Across the Ocean, at Bangalore International Centre. Exploring the journeys of stringed instruments across cultures and centuries, from ancient Gandhara to the global circulation of the sitar and electric guitar, the lecture reflected on the histories of exchange, hybridity and connection that underpin the musical traditions celebrated by the South Asian Symphony Orchestra.

2026 and Beyond, SASF Youth Workshop and Concert : This year has been the Foundation’s most intergenerational year with the launch of Silver Songbirds, a senior community singing group that has steadily grown in numbers since it’s start in early 2026. The group has also had its first concert at Sabha Bengaluru in April this year.

SASF also launched its first large scale youth workshop that drew in world class performers to mentor musicians from across the region, and culminated in a concert that featured both SASO mentees alongside its musicians, and a sold out concert at Mount Carmel College in late May, with guest pianist Karl Lutchmayer.

Eight years after its founding, the South Asian Symphony Foundation stands as both an orchestra and an ongoing cultural project. Through commissions, performances, educational initiatives and public lectures, it has expanded the possibilities of what a South Asian orchestra can be. Rather than treating the region’s musical traditions as occasional additions to a Western symphonic repertoire, SASF has sought to place them at its centre, creating new orchestral works that draw on the histories, languages and musical cultures of South Asia itself.

The Foundation’s vision of a South Asian Songbook remains an evolving one. Each new commission, arrangement and collaboration adds another thread to a repertoire that reflects the complexity of the region: its shared histories, its distinct identities and the conversations that have always existed across its borders. It continues to affirm that music can preserve heritage while creating something entirely new.

The Singing Bow

There is a particular kind of stillness that beautifully rendered performances can produce. A sense of having stepped out of the city’s ordinary (and unusually chaotic in recent times!) hours into something slower and meditative. That was the effect of The Singing Bow, a violin and piano recital held on the 13th of August at Sabha, Bengaluru.

The recital was dedicated to the memory of Ambassador Latha Reddy (5 April 1951 – 26 July 2026), who served with distinction as Secretary (East) in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, and later as Deputy National Security Advisor. The dedication set the evening’s guiding idea early: that understanding begins with listening.

The recital paired violinist Martina Charles, and pianist Nadine Jo Crasto.

Martina Charles is the first musician in India, and the first from Kerala, to be awarded the Fellowship of Trinity College London (FTCL) in violin, completing the diploma at age thirteen. She is also the youngest violinist currently in the South Asian Symphony Orchestra. She has been described as ‘one in a billion’.

Nadine Jo Crasto, a Young Steinway Artist, completed her Master’s in Piano Performance at the Royal Academy of Music under Colin Stone, and now divides her time between teaching privately in Mumbai and an active performing career as a solo and chamber musician.

The Programme

The recital opened with Bach’s Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D minor for Solo Violin, BWV 1004, a work that arguably stands as the summit of the unaccompanied violin repertoire. A single theme worked through more than sixty variations, built to carry the emotional weight of a requiem on one instrument alone.

This was followed by the first movement of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24. Also titled the Spring Sonata, a nickname earned by the ease and lyricism of its opening theme, a marked departure from the more turbulent temperament of much of his violin writing.

Massenet’s Méditation from Thaïs, originally an orchestral entr’acte, which is a shorter piece played between larger acts in an opera or other musical work, is now among the most frequently performed standalone violin showpieces. It turned the evening toward the Romantic with its long, unhurried melodic line asking for the kind of sustained tone and control that made the violin sing.

The programme then moved into more contemporary and folk territory: Jay Ungar’s Ashokan Farewell, written in 1982 and best known for its use in Ken Burns’s documentary The Civil War. A melancholic and sentimental waltz written out of a deep sense of loss and longing, it was, surprisingly, first composed as a farewell to mark the closing of a summer music camp.

This was followed by John Williams’s theme from Schindler’s List, first composed for Steven Spielberg’s 1993 epic historical drama, globally revered for its emotional depth and emotional beauty.

Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 dominated was a centrepiece of sorts. A fantasia built from themes in Bizet’s opera, and among the most technically demanding works in the violin repertoire, moved the performance from its moments of reflection to the dramatic. Charles’ mastery over the violin made the performance thrilling. The piano part for this piece carries far more than accompaniment, and the duo’s dynamic sensitivity was immaculate, and capturing the essence of Bizet’s opera.

The recital closed with the second and third movements of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64: the Andante movement’s lyricism giving way to the buoyant, almost weightless finale that has kept the concerto a repertoire staple since its premiere in 1845.

Listening to performers that draw you in so well leaves you inspired and yearning for more, as the audience at this recital did. For those new to chamber music, the performance was a masterclass in storytelling and synchronisation. The few children in the audience certainly left the recital hall with big dreams of becoming a musician.

Written by Ankrita Shankar

Join us on 13th August 2026 at 6pm at Sabha Bengaluru for an evening of music spanning three centuries, performed by violinist Martina Charles and pianist Nadine Jo Crasto.

This recital is dedicated to the memory of Ambassador Latha Reddy, who believed, as we do, that understanding begins with listening.

Featuring music from Bach's Baroque to the contemporary folk-inspired music of Jay Ungar, the recital brings together celebrated masterpieces alongside lyrical favourites, showcasing the expressive range of the violin.

17-year-old violinist Martina Charles is the first person from Kerala and the youngest person in India to be awarded the Fellowship of Trinity College London (FTCL) in Violin, having completed the prestigious diploma at the age of 13.

Nadine Jo Crasto, a Royal Academy of Music graduate, received the Nancy Dickinson and Greta Parkinson Awards, and frequently performs as a solo pianist and chamber musician across India, Bangladesh and London.

Entry for the concert is free. Register to attend by clicking the button below.

Reserve a Ticket Here

The Sadho Project Reimagines Kabir for Contemporary Audiences

The Sadho Project, aptly named after Kabirdas’ followers, ‘Seekers’, is an emerging ensemble in Bengaluru that blends modern soundscapes and musical styles to reimagine classic texts.

For them, every performance is different. Following their concert in June at Jagriti Theatre in Bengaluru, the ensemble described the evening as one of their strongest performances to date. It was their first appearance at the venue, where, despite the rain and Bengaluru traffic, they estimate the theatre was around three quarters full.

“We had one of our best sounds ever so far,” says Roopini Ravindran. “We were very happy to see so many people come down all the way and brave the traffic and the rains.”

The audience was as much a part of the performance as the musicians. “The audience were really fun,” adds Aditi Bharatee. “In some of our songs, we actually try to teach them the melody and get them to sing along… and they participated with full gusto.”

That interaction reflects the ensemble’s broader approach. Rather than presenting a fixed concert programme, every performance is curated differently depending on the venue and audience from a large collection of music.

Blending Musical Worlds

The ensemble’s own backgrounds reflect the diversity of musical training in India.

Composer Vivaswath Rao trained in Hindustani classical vocal music alongside keyboard performance before formally studying Hindustani and Western classical music and music technology in a focused music degree. This laid the foundation for his work in composition and songwriting today.

Percussionist Anirudh Sharma comes from a traditional Tabla and Pakhawaj background but has long been interested in percussion traditions beyond the classical repertoire. “I really like to explore all genres of music and how percussion plays its role,” he says, citing Bhakti music, Dasa Sahitya and Haveli Sangeet among his interests. Working with The Sadho Project has allowed him to experiment with sounds beyond Indian classical percussion.

The wide diversity of sounds and textures came from combining percussion instruments that don’t typically feature alongside electronics and modern sounds. During the recent concert, for example, he performed on the West African Asalato and the Carnatic Kanjira, combining them with electronic textures developed by the rest of the ensemble.

Outside music, Sharma is pursuing a PhD in psychology and says he has a longstanding interest in Indian philosophy.

Vocalist Kusumitha Vasanth trained in Carnatic music before moving to Hindustani classical music. Alongside performing, she works as Associate Editor at The Indian Music Diaries, an online magazine for independent musicians of India, and also manages independent artists and festivals.

Vocalist Roopini Ravindran began her journey in music with Carnatic music before studying Hindustani and Western classical traditions, including opera, later completing a Master’s in Music Education. She now heads the Western Music department at Subramaniam Academy of Performing Arts (SAPA), where she combines teaching with creative pursuits. “I really enjoy bringing together all the three different styles of music that I have been exposed to,” she says, “particularly Carnatic rhythmic ideas, Hindustani training and Western harmony.”

Vocalist and Keyboardist Aditi Bharatee brings a background in Kodály-based music education alongside her work as a performer. Having started piano lessons at a young age, she wanted to build an education system that teaches students of music to think critically. She runs her own music school, where she introduces Kodály pedagogy through group classes, with a particular focus on developing students’ aural skills. “I’m happy to let it grow slowly,” she says. “I’m seeing good progress with the students and they’re developing good aural skills in music.”

The Origins

The ensemble takes its name from ‘Sadho’, a word frequently found in Kabir’s poetry.

“‘Sadho’ translates to seeker,” explains composer Vivaswath Rao to readers new to the works of Kabir. “Someone who’s looking for deeper meaning in life. But it’s also a term that’s very closely connected with Kabir Das’s works himself. When you hear the word ‘Sadho’, everybody immediately thinks of Kabir.”

The genesis of The Sadho Project was entirely accidental, born out of a localised studio experiment.

“The concept was really born out of an experiment,” Rao says. While preparing for one of his concerts, he reworked the well-known Kabir bhajan ‘Bhala Laga Yaar Fakiri Mein’, combining its traditional melody with ambient textures and found sounds. “I thought that was very interesting because this was an avenue where we could explore.”

That single experiment gradually expanded into an ensemble dedicated to exploring Kabir’s poetry through original compositions and contemporary arrangements.

“What better way to do it than to put together an ensemble that explores Kabir Das’s poetry in a way that’s authentic to us,” Rao says, “authentic to the times that we live in, authentic to the world that we live in, with all its challenges and conflicts and debates around us today.”

The group’s first concert confirmed there was an audience for that approach. “When we put together our first concert, that went well,” he recalls. “We knew people did have an interest for it… turns out there are more seekers than just us.”

Reinterpreting a Musical Tradition

While Kabir’s poetry has existed for centuries, The Sadho Project does not see itself as simply reproducing an existing musical tradition.

“There is a whole legacy of existing compositions,” says Kusumitha Vasanth. “But it’s also our chance to bring out our interpretation and our expression… whether through composition or arrangement, or the additional instruments that we add in, or the sounds that we add in.”

When asked what inspired them to refresh existing compositions as opposed to just adding layers to existing canon, Rao said the poetry itself naturally lends itself to new musical settings. “The beauty of Kabir’s poetry is that it always has something new to offer,” he says. “The moment you read a Kabir poem, for me, it triggers a lot of ideas as a composer.” He explains that the group performs a mixture of original compositions and rearranged traditional settings.

“Almost all of the poems that we have analysed have been composed at some point or the other,” he says. “So we make our set a combination of what we might today call covers, where we take traditional compositions that we rearrange in our own style, and the rest of it are original compositions using the same text.”

The project’s musical freedom, he believes, comes from the way Kabir’s poetry has historically been experienced.

“The beauty of Kabir Das is that it’s actually never really recited,” Rao says. “It’s always sung. Even when people think they’re reciting, they’re singing it. So the tradition of engaging with Kabir’s literature is through song.”

That approach has also attracted audiences from different musical backgrounds.

“There are people who know a lot about Kabir and follow his work,” says Ravindran. “Then there are people like some of us who knew about Kabir from school and hadn’t really looked at it ever since.”

The music itself broadens that audience further.

“We have people coming who are interested to explore this experimental space, people who are into Indian classical, people who are into Indian folk, and then people who are into Kabir. We have this nice little conglomeration of everybody coming together with their own different interests.”

Building a Concert Programme

Although the ensemble has developed a substantial repertoire, no two performances are identical.

“The process of choosing the programme is dictated by the music,” Rao explains. The group spends time developing new compositions, discussing the poetry and collecting sounds before deciding what will appear in a concert. “When we know we have a concert coming up is when we start to string them together. We start to create a programme that feels very natural.”

Practical considerations also shape the final set list. “If we’re performing at a university, we might curate the music a little bit differently. If we’re performing at Jagriti Theatre, then we curate the music according to that.”

For the Jagriti performance, the programme was connected by a single question: what does it mean to be a seeker?

Aditi explains that because Kabir repeatedly addresses his audience as Sadho, the concert explored different aspects of that journey. “There are some songs directed towards searching for the guru who can share the truth,” she says. “In another one, it’s about looking at yourself… we sort of had this thread connecting the music.”

The repertoire itself moved across a wide musical landscape.

Panchi Ko Kaun Thaur Hai? combines a five-beat rhythmic cycle with the West African Asalato, a pairing percussionist Anirudh Sharma describes as “very, very experimental and very fun for all of us.” Main Marjeeva Samudra Ka Dubki Maari is one of Sharma’s favourite pieces, not only for its message but for the creative possibilities it offers. “This is one of the compositions I really enjoy because it gives a lot of scope for so much different sound exploration,” he says. The piece features the Carnatic Kanjira, which, he explains, “gives you a very natural sound connected with water… that conveys depth.” Meanwhile, Teri Kaya Nagar Ka Kaun Dhani? has become “the percussion highlight” of the ensemble’s recent concerts. “This is something that I really look forward to,” Sharma says, referring to the extended tabla solo layered with melodica, vocals and electronic textures.

The programme also included Sadho So Satguru Mohi Bhaave, one of Ravindran’s original compositions, and Jara Halke Gaadi Hanko, a well-known traditional composition that the ensemble reimagines using dubstep-inspired electronic production.

The concert concluded with Yugan Yugan Yogi, performed using only piano and four-part vocal harmony.

Some pieces in the programme were newly composed by members of the ensemble, while others retained traditional melodies that had been extensively rearranged.

For Rao, however, that distinction between composition and arrangement is less important than the process itself. “It’s not something that I set out to do,” he says of his compositions. “It’s something that happens quite organically. It’s really the inspiration that comes from the poems that dictates it. Kabir’s style of writing is also very musical, inherently musical, there is a rhythm to the poems themselves. There is a musicality to it.”

The ensemble’s next performance is already in the works. If their previous concerts are any indication, audiences can expect another programme built not only around Kabir’s poetry, but around a fresh set of musical conversations between tradition, experimentation and the musicians themselves. If the ensemble’s experiments have proved anything, it is that there remains both the curiosity and the audience for hearing familiar texts through unfamiliar sounds.

Listen to the Sadho Project here:

Finding Her Voice Through The French Horn

From a chance decision in childhood to performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sri Lankan-American horn player Nivanthi has built an impressive international career while remaining closely connected to her Sri Lankan roots. In this interview, first published in Echo, Ceylon Today on 26th July 2026, she speaks with Induwara Athapattu about the French horn, freelancing in London, and the role of music in building cultural bridges across South Asia.

From the moment she was pulled out of a science class as a nine-year-old, Nivanthi thought she was in trouble. Instead, that unexpected interruption became the turning point of her life. Her band teacher had a simple question: would she consider switching from the trumpet to the French horn? Relieved that she was not being disciplined, she agreed without much thought.

Years later, that spontaneous decision has taken the Sri Lankan-American musician to some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, performing with internationally acclaimed orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Chineke! Orchestra. Today, based in London as a freelance horn player, Nivanthi is carving out a remarkable career in one of classical music’s most competitive environments while breaking barriers in a section historically dominated by men. At the same time, she proudly carries her Sri Lankan heritage across international stages, embracing music as a bridge between cultures.

The childhood decision that changed everything

Music was part of Nivanthi’s life long before she discovered the French horn. “I think my first exposure to music was in piano,” she recalled, speaking to Ceylon Today. “I took piano lessons from the time I was about five.” Her father was also learning the piano as an adult, while her older brother joined the school band programme. Naturally, she wanted to follow in his footsteps.

“I think I was about nine when I first started, and I started on the trumpet.” The transition to the French horn came unexpectedly. “About halfway through my first year, my teacher pulled me out of science class, and I thought I was in trouble,” she laughed. “She asked me to switch to horn, or if I would be interested in learning it. I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and I think I was just relieved I wasn’t in trouble.” What began as an almost accidental decision gradually evolved into a lifelong passion.

Through school bands, regional orchestras, the Merit School of Music in Chicago and the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra, Nivanthi steadily refined her craft. She later became part of the National Youth Orchestra of the USA before beginning university.

Interestingly, music was not initially meant to become her profession.

“I did a neuroscience degree for my undergrad,” she shared. “Halfway through, I realised that I would regret not giving classical music as a career a chance.” That realisation prompted a bold leap of faith. She pursued a master’s degree in music before eventually relocating to London, where she now works as a freelance orchestral musician. “No two weeks look that same,” she confessed. “Whoever needs a horn player, if I’m on their list somehow, I’ll work with them.”

The instrument that does it all

For many outside the world of orchestral music, the French horn remains something of a mystery. Yet for Nivanthi, it is arguably the most expressive instrument in the orchestra.

“I’m so glad I stuck with the horn,” she said. “I just think it’s the most versatile instrument.” Its remarkable range allows it to blend effortlessly across orchestral sections. “It can go really high and really low. It has a mellow sound, so it can go really well with the strings. But it’s also a brass, powerful instrument, so we can hold our own with the trumpets and trombones.”

She believes this adaptability gives horn players some of the orchestra’s richest musical opportunities. “I just think all the best parts are written for the horn, honestly.” For audiences unfamiliar with classical instrumentation, she offers a surprisingly relatable comparison. If someone’s never heard a French horn, I ask, ‘Have you ever watched a movie?’ Anytime something cool is happening, it’s a French horn in the soundtrack. Next time you go to a movie, pay attention. It will be a French horn, I promise you.”

Performing on the world’s great stages

Nivanthi’s career has accelerated rapidly in recent years. Among her recent highlights was touring Europe with the Chineke Orchestra, an ensemble renowned for championing diversity within classical music.

Performing at Amsterdam’s famed Concertgebouw was an unforgettable experience. “We performed at the Concertgebouw in the Netherlands, which is just one of the most famous concert halls in the world.”

Alongside Chineke!, she has also performed with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, building an impressive portfolio despite still being at the early stages of her professional career. “Quite recently was my first time playing in a section of fully women,” she said of a performance with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. While the all-female brass section happened naturally rather than through deliberate planning, it held considerable significance.

“Historically, classical music in general, and especially the brass section, tends to be men. So this was really special.”

The moment symbolised more than representation. It reflected how slowly changing demographics are reshaping classical music, creating space for talented women to thrive in areas that have long remained male dominated.

Freelancing in one of the world’s toughest music cities

Although performing with prestigious orchestras may appear glamorous from the outside, freelance life demands resilience. London is one of the world’s busiest centres for classical music, attracting exceptional musicians from across the globe.

“It’s a very saturated music market,” Nivanthi explained to Ceylon Today. “There’s just lots of incredible musicians here.” The uncertainty, she shared, is often the hardest part. “You never know where you are on someone’s list. You never know exactly when the next exciting thing is going to be.” Sometimes work arrives months in advance. At other times, opportunities emerge almost instantly.

“On Saturday, when I was with Bournemouth Symphony, I literally got the call that morning, and 15 minutes later I was on a train,” she recalled a recent experience. The unpredictability can be stressful, but it also keeps every week different. “It’s feast and famine,” she said.

Music without borders

Among the many projects closest to her heart is the South Asian Symphony Orchestra, an initiative founded by former Indian diplomat Nirupama Rao to strengthen cultural ties across South Asia through music.

For Nivanthi, whose parents were born in Sri Lanka before moving to the United States for their doctoral studies, the orchestra represents something deeply personal. “My parents were both born in Sri Lanka, and they came to the US to do their PhDs. They had my brother and later they had me, so, I was born and raised in the US.” She also holds dual Sri Lankan citizenship, something she says she is “quite proud of.” Through the South Asian Symphony Orchestra, she has found a meaningful way to connect both sides of her identity.

“They meet two or three times a year and put on concerts as kind of an effort in cultural diplomacy.” The initiative demonstrates how music can transcend borders, politics and history, creating dialogue where words often fail.

An unforgettable musical conversation

Despite her Sri Lankan roots, Nivanthi has yet to perform professionally in the country. “Not yet,” she said. “At various points I’ve had discussions, but it hasn’t materialised yet.” Nevertheless, she remains optimistic. “I’m hoping that hopefully soon I’ll be able to.”

For Sri Lankan audiences, such a performance would not merely showcase an internationally accomplished musician. It would also celebrate someone whose heritage continues to shape her identity despite building her career thousands of kilometres away.

One of the performances that remains especially vivid in Nivanthi’s memory was an unusual collaboration with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Danish folk trio Dreamers’ Circus. Rather than presenting Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony in a conventional concert, the orchestra interspersed each movement with contemporary folk music. “It was just this really cool concert,” she recalled. “The way the music kind of fed off each other… it was really unusual.” Moreover, working alongside folk musicians also challenged the conventions of classical performance.

“Folk musicians just approach music so differently from classically trained musicians.” She even found herself giving one of the band’s members a quick lesson on the French horn. “I showed one of them how to play the horn just very briefly, which was really fun.”

The next chapter

The months ahead promise to be equally exciting. Nivanthi is touring with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as part of a wind octet before making her BBC Proms debut, one of the highest-profile events in the international classical music calendar. “It’ll be my first BBC Prom,” she mentioned. “It’s an incredibly special event.”

She is also looking forward to the release of several orchestral recordings made over the past year with both Chineke! Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. For someone whose musical journey began almost by accident, the future continues to unfold in extraordinary ways.

From a Sri Lankan family that settled in America, to concert halls across Europe, Nivanthi’s story reflects determination, adaptability and quiet excellence. In an orchestral world where brass sections have historically been dominated by men, she has established herself through skill rather than stereotype, proving that talent resonates far louder than tradition. And all because a nervous nine-year-old answered “yes” when a teacher asked if she would like to try a different instrument.

Written by Induwara Athapattu

Echo, Ceylon Today

Next Month: A Journey Through 8 Years

On 9th July 2026, the South Asian Symphony Foundation marked its eighth anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, next month’s issue of Accord will be dedicated to SASF’s journey — from its earliest performances to its growing impact across the region. We’ll revisit landmark concerts, explore the Foundation’s role in fostering musical collaboration across South Asia, and look back at works rooted in the musical traditions of the subcontinent that have featured in its programmes. Watch this space as we celebrate eight years of music, community and cultural revival.

Read Ambassador Nirupama Rao’s post here.

Written and edited by Ankrita Shankar

Music pulsed in every facet of early life for Soundarie David Rodrigo. “I was blessed being born into a musical family,” she says. Her mother is a music teacher. Her maternal grandfather was a church organist. Her paternal grandmother was a violinist.

She grew up attending a Catholic convent school in Sri Lanka, where she was routinely called on to play the organ or piano for services, hymns, school celebrations. It was there that her relationship with choirs began, without any particular intention behind it.

While completing her piano and violin exams, she was offered a scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London. At the RCM, her course split into two distinct disciplines. The first was performance, which includes hours alone in the practice room, maintaining the physical technique that serious piano playing demands. The second was accompaniment, which she describes as something different in kind, not just in degree.

“I got to work with a lot of singers, with instrumentalists. It gave me a sense of confidence to be at the piano and back a singer or artist, because I think that itself is an art by itself.” Accompaniment asks the pianist to set aside the soloist’s instinct and to listen instead, reading breath, being actively responsive, making someone else sound better. It is its own discipline.

In the meantime, she had also been accepted into the law faculty in Sri Lanka, which was deferred to after her studies in England. When she returned to Sri Lanka, her old school called her back to direct the choir.

“Usually in a choir, there is always an accompanist and a conductor,” she explains. “But here, I was playing the piano and conducting from the piano. So much so, that the choir got used to singing without a conductor — because they would depend on the way I navigate the choir, to bring them in with the keys.”

The experience became the foundation for Soul Sounds, the choir she founded that has since become one of Sri Lanka’s best-known vocal ensembles, later expanding into the Soul Sounds Academy. Today, she says, the name has become “almost a brand.” Soul Sounds became the first Sri Lankan choir to compete internationally at the World Choir Games. In 2024, they returned from the competition with two gold medals, one in the Gospel category and the other for Folklore and Indigenous Music.

When asked whether this took time away from playing the piano as a soloist, Rodrigo said that she maintains her connection with solo piano performance, and has very recently, in March this year, performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, returning as soloist after a few years.

“I appeared with the orchestra after a few years, playing something very classical. That’s when I realised that my heart actually belongs to classical music. And although I love working with choirs, when I’m alone at the piano, it’s just mine.” She cites a particular love for the Romantics, composers like Rachmaninoff and Grieg.

The Evolution of Choral Singing in Sri Lanka

The Sri Lankan choral scene has changed considerably in the time she has been working in it. While discussing how the tradition was established through colonial British influence with school choirs, church choirs and institutions like convents and mission schools, she states it has expanded beyond itself. “There are lots of people in choir because of the benefits of singing in a choir, but it extends beyond schools and churches. Two people just getting together and forming groups and choirs,” she observes. “Young music teachers are emerging and taking Western training seriously.” There’s an increase in competitiveness and the growth of more music schools.

With this, there is a growing body of work that blends this Western influence with traditional and regional material.

In an upcoming concert, Rodrigo’s work reflects that movement toward the regional identity. In early July, she is directing a concert that traces the soundscapes of Sri Lanka, going back, in her words, “right to the sounds that were prevalent during King Rajasinghe’s time .” The challenge she names when working in this territory is one of musical integrity. Western choral harmony and traditional South Asian melody do not sit together without negotiation. “With Western harmony — you should always be careful when you are doing something folk,” she says. “Because harmony was something alien to that music. The task is to keep the authenticity of the melody but making it fuller for a choir. To bring out rhythm through the voice.”

What came up in discussing challenges facing arrangement, experimentation and having a platform was the topic of sponsorship and fundraising within the arts. What has been a large obstacle for many artists is still real and largely unchanged. Rodrigo has spent twenty years trying to secure consistent sponsorship for the arts in Sri Lanka. “I’ve been trying — twenty years ago, I was begging for sponsorship. Twenty years later, I still am. This is not to disregard those that have come forward to help. I’m saying it is still difficult.”

The mathematics are not complicated. She draws a parallel with the cultural phenomenon that captures the heaviest sponsorship — sport. A premier concert venue in Colombo seats between 650 and 900 people on a full house. A cricket stadium holds multiples of that. “Sponsors will go for cricket,” she says, “but when it comes to music and the arts, it’s difficult. It’s about outreach and visibility for them.” Choral music sits in an awkward middle ground — more expensive to mount than a solo recital, less commercially visible than a pop concert, with an audience that is genuinely enthusiastic but, as she describes it “niche”. The sponsors who do come forward tend to come out of love for the art. The ones who do not are simply calculating reach.

Twenty years of doing this work produces a certain equanimity. What has changed, she notes, is that Soul Sounds now has a name; a reputation built through consistency. “People know of us.” That credibility took time to accumulate, and it is the one resource that cannot be shortcut and will prove to be a challenge for anyone starting today.

While Soul Sounds continues to grow internationally, another strand of Rodrigo’s work has become deeply personal: the Soul Sounds Community Choir, a seniors’ ensemble she runs in Colombo, that inspired the conception of the Silver Songbirds. The Colombo choir was founded on the 10th of March last year, on what would have been her father’s birthday. He died of a sudden heart attack five years ago. He was not a trained musician, but he loved to sing at the end of a party. “Even just last Monday, when I was doing a song with the seniors, I thought if my dad was here, he would have been singing in the group.”

The Silver Songbirds came about because Ambassador Nirupama Rao attended a Soul Sounds rehearsal in Colombo and came away wanting to bring that sense of community to Bengaluru. Rodrigo travelled to Bengaluru, worked with the group alongside Juanita, and found an ensemble with something she recognises from her own choir: a genuine hunger for community and purpose. “The sense of belonging, the eagerness, the fact that they all feel there’s a purpose for them now.” The numbers in Bengaluru have grown significantly since her first visit.

Her expectation of the singers in both groups is not professional standard. It is something simpler and, she suggests, durable. “I don’t expect them to become professional singers. But I can guarantee you they will learn to sing, and they will begin to enjoy music.” She has seen members, and their children now grown up, tell her that the choir has given them a second lease on life. That they look forward to coming. That they look forward to the community.

For Rodrigo, the through-line across all of it; the RCM years, the competitive choir, the seniors’ ensemble, the folk concert, the piano, is the belief that music is something worth building conditions for. It is to create the circumstances in which other people can perform, belong, and find purpose, as she has. While she finds herself blessed, she acknowledges the immense support without which she wouldn’t be able to do what she is doing today, and that came from her family, including her parents, her brother and husband, her teachers both in Sri Lanka and England, and from her collaboration with Ambassador Nirupama Rao.

And somewhere in a schedule that takes her from rehearsal to practice room to arts ambassador, there is still the piano and her love for the Romantics.

Upcoming Performances:

July 12th at 7.30pm at the Lionel Wendt Theatre: Soul Sounds presents ‘Pop Era’. The evening will be an unforgettable celebration of the greatest pop hits through the decades, performed by the voices of Soul Sounds at the Lionel Wendt Theatre in Colombo. Ticket booking information is in the poster above.

July 16th-20th 2026, Various Venues, Singapore: The Soul Sounds Academy Children’s Choir will be performing at the Voices of the World International Choir Festival in Singapore. Click the link below to check the schedule of performances and to book tickets.

Performance Schedule & Ticket Booking

World Music Day: A Celebration of All Things Music

Every year on 21st June, the summer solstice brings with it not just the longest day of light but one of the world’s most inclusive musical traditions. Fête de la Musique or World Music Day was first celebrated in Pars in 1982, and is now celebrated in more than 120 countries. The day is host to free concerts, street performances, and open-air sessions.

The ethos is simple: music belongs to everyone. No tickets, no genre specificity, no divide between professional and amateur, a contrast from the culture where classical training has historically been gatekept. The day offers a counterpoint, allowing the world to turn into a stage for musicians of all ages, region and level to perform.

This year, South Asia showed up to celebrate in its own way.

The region saw open mic sessions across cities in the afternoon, giving way to ticketed evening concerts that blend local bands with visiting French acts through the Alliance Francaişe network. The presence of the French diplomatic and cultural infrastructure across South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan are all long-standing participants in the Fête de la Musique ecosystem) has meant the day has structure here that it lacks in many other regions.

The French Institute in India extended Fête de la Musique across fifteen Indian cities this June, describing the programme as a bold, immersive extension of the global celebration, featuring roaming sonic experiences, collective dances, and intimate concerts that turned each city into a stage. The curatorial ambition behind the Indian edition has long been to create unexpected collaborations: French contemporary sounds rubbing against local sensibilities, underground and institutional venues treated as equals.

Chandigarh, for its part, has taken a different flavour altogether, with the Department of Tourism marking the day annually with free concerts by Punjabi and Bollywood artists, transforming public venues into cultural hubs.

Another event that perhaps best captured South Asia’s own musical self-confidence this World Music Day was a sold-out night in Kolkata.

The 16th edition of Sourendro-Soumyojit’s World Music Day Concert at Netaji Indoor Stadium brought together an extraordinary lineup for the evening’s theme: ‘the Spirit of Independent Music’, including performances by Gulzar, Hariharan, Shankar Mahadevan, Shilpa Rao, Vishal Bhardwaj, Rekha Bhardwaj, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Anupam Roy, Kalpana Patowary, Parvathy Baul, Sid Sriram, Ayaan Ali Bangash, Nikhita Gandhi, and Benny Dayal.

The breadth of that lineup tells its own story — Carnatic-inflected pop, Hindustani classical, Baul tradition, Bollywood composition, and Malayalam independent music sharing a single stage under the banner of independence rather than fusion. Sourendro Mullick and Soumyojit Das have built this concert into one of the subcontinent’s most consistent annual musical statements, and this year’s edition was a consolidation of that legacy.

In other news, singer Sonu Nigam has launched I Believe Your Music (IBYM), a new initiative designed to mentor and support emerging independent musicians. Unveiled on World Music Day, the platform will offer artists access to industry mentorship, marketing support, release planning and global digital distribution. Expanding on Nigam’s independent label launched in 2020, IBYM aims to create a structured ecosystem for singers, composers, lyricists, producers and instrumentalists. In partnership with Global Music Junction, the initiative will also feature a technology-driven submission platform, with Nigam and his team personally reviewing entries to help promising artists build sustainable careers in music.

Written by Ankrita Shankar

Fifty participants were selected following an audition process: 21 playing orchestral instruments, 17 in the choir, 8 pianists and 4 conductors. They arrived from across the country and beyond. The majority were from Bengaluru and Chennai; others from Mumbai, Kochi, Thoothukudi, Shillong, and two from Nepal. The instrumentation reflected wider patterns in how classical training is distributed in India. The mentees comprised of strings, voice and piano, with one flute and one clarinet. It’s clear that vocal training is still the most accessible entry point into classical music.

The workshop schedule ran from breakfast to evening, roughly twelve hours of structured musical activity each day. Orchestra, choir and piano sessions ran simultaneously alongside classes in musicianship and performance practice. Conductor Alvin Arumugam, speaking during the week, described the challenge of running all three streams concurrently as “massive,” and noted that future editions may separate the orchestral and choral components into more focused programmes. His approach throughout was to hold the line between support and high expectation: “My mission is to challenge them, so that after this week they leave not just having had the exposure, but also becoming better musicians.”

Participants rehearsed in ensemble settings from the first day, at the pace and to the standards of a professional musical environment. For many, this was new. Among those interviewed, one had been travelling to another city once a month for lessons; another had been studying entirely online. Some play in orchestras regularly; however full days running from morning through to evening, sustained across a week, was not something they had previously encountered. The opportunity for immersion like this is rare in India.

Among the faculty, Karl Lutchmayer led piano sessions throughout the week, alternating between rehearsing with the SASO orchestra for his own performance at the end of the week. A concert pianist and educator, Lutchmayer holds a PhD from Cambridge and a Master’s from Oxford, has spent fifteen years as a senior academic lecturer at Trinity Laban, and has lectured at the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. For the past five years he has served as Head of Music and Pedagogy for the Music Teachers Board in India, work for which he was awarded the Bharat Gaurav Lifetime Achievement award in 2015.

Lutchmayer’s sessions at the workshop were music conservatory level. Working through a fugue, a participant was required to examine phrasing, articulation, structure and interpretive intention in close detail, at a granularity reminiscent of professional schools.

For many participants, this represented a departure from the examination-oriented systems through which they have trained. The sessions asked them to interrogate the music rather than execute it, and that distinction, between playing accurately and understanding what is actually being asked, is one that formal exams rarely make room for.

Augustine Paul directed the choral work. A Chennai-based conductor and educator, he has led the Madras Musical Association choir since 2009, taking the ensemble to London, Rome, Vienna, Poland, Singapore, Dubai and Sri Lanka. He is the founder of the Octet Cantabile and holds a Licentiate Diploma from Trinity College London alongside a Master’s in English Literature. Alvin described the effect of his rehearsals with admiration: “You walk into the room before, and you walk out after… the choir is not only better, but they’re happier.”

On the question of western classical music in India and whether the interest and uptake is marginal, Alvin was careful about framing this as being behind. He notes that while India is one country, it is immensely diverse culturally. It is a country of multiple languages, norms, and musical tradition that stretches back thousands of years. Western classical music is growing here, but it is doing so alongside, not instead of, what already exists.

“That is why we exist,” he said. His advice to students was to embrace curiosity. A musician needs to be curious about everything: orchestral music, opera, popular music, fine art, literature, language, history. “The instrument is a medium of the artist. The artist needs to develop the inside.” Whether participants go on to professional careers is, in his view, beside the larger point.

“We not only need professional musicians, but we need music lovers to support the growth of musicians. If out of the entire orchestra two become professionals and ninety-eight become music lovers, that is still important.”

The Weekend Concerts

The Saturday concert, at Christ University Auditorium, showcased the efforts of workshop participants and members of SASO in a programme that drew on the operatic and choral repertoire rehearsed through the week, alongside the concerto work of three pianists.

The programme opened with Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, a short, dramatic orchestral work. The choral programme that followed moved through some of the most recognisable works in the western canon. Bruckner’s Locus Iste is a brief sacred piece. The two Mozart excerpts came from operas most audiences will know: a scene from Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), and an aria from Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro). Puccini’s Kyrie from his early Messa di Gloria is warmly melodic in the way Puccini always is, and Verdi’s Va, pensiero from Nabucco, a chorus of exiles yearning for home, closed the choral half.

The second half was given over to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with three pianist mentees performing one movement each. One of them had stated during the week that they’d begun learning their movements only two weeks before the concert. The performances were polished and exhilarating. The encore was Augustine Paul’s arrangement of Dingiri Dingale, a Tamil folk song that is becoming a SASO signature.

Sunday’s concert, at Mount Carmel College featured SASO with Karl Lutchmayer as soloist. The event was sold out, and attended by an eager audience that’s keenly developing an interest in orchestral performance and the regional representation at SASO.

The programme opened with Maithreem Bhajata, a Sanskrit Bhajan made famous by M.S. Subbulakshmi’s performance in October 1966, performed here as a prelude by Bengaluru based carnatic singer Bhargavi Venkataram.

Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, both with Lutchmayer at the piano, formed the first half of the programme. Appalachian Spring is quiet and expansive, yet delicate. Copland wrote it as a ballet score and it has the feeling of open landscape, unhurried and clean. Rhapsody in Blue is almost the opposite: full of cinematic energy and swagger, it moves between moods quickly, blending the sound of a jazz band with a full orchestra. It is one of those pieces that announces itself immediately. The arrangement performed was sourced specifically for the occasion; as Alvin noted, the original orchestration is vast and the evening required a leaner version to fit the instrumentalists available.

“It was really tough,” he said, “but we managed to do it.”

The concert closed with Mozart’s Symphony No. 41, the “Jupiter”; the last symphony he ever wrote, and arguably his most ambitious. The final movement is remarkable for the way it weaves multiple melodies together simultaneously, which is harder to do than it sounds and even harder to make feel effortless. For the encore, Alvin returned to it: the closing passage of that same movement, performed, as he noted, “as it was done many years ago”.

The Man Who Drew Music: On the Centennial of Mario Miranda

Born in Daman on May 2 1926, Mario Miranda was known for infusing life and fluidity onto his canvas with every brushstroke. One could describe him as a cartoonist, painter, an observer of everything.

He is remembered mostly for his people: the bulgy-eyed characters jostling on Bombay footpaths, the gossiping beatas on Goan balcaos (so popular that you can get figurines of them!), the formidable Miss Fonseca and the stylish Miss Nimbu Pani. He is also known for his ability to capture the buzz and vibrance of a room full of people, whether at a concert hall or a crowded street.

For over two decades, at the Jazz Yatra festivals held at Rang Bhavan in Mumbai, one could spot Miranda in the front row, sketchpad open, drawing world-famous jazz musicians as they played. He wasn’t there as a journalist. He was there as a jazz aficionado who happened to draw. The sketches he made: pen, ink, and watercolour works, captured Herbie Mann, Kenny Barron at the piano, the whole mood of those open-air nights. These were published the very next morning in the papers, still warm from the night before.

Most artists working at the speed of daily journalism lose feeling in the rush. Miranda seemed to gain it. His Jazz Yatra drawings have an improvisational quality, a looseness you don’t always find in his more finished work. They look the way jazz sounds: structured chaos, figures leaning into something just off the edge of the frame.

Art critic Uma Nair once described his style as possessing a “collective melody and mood,” while the usual descriptions of art are in visual terms: composition, colour, line, space, form. Yet this is an apt description of his art. His compositions are alive and fluid with a sense of movement. This is less surprising when you consider where he grew up. He observed people everywhere, and in Goa, movement was everywhere and music was never just in the background.

The taverna appears repeatedly in his notebooks from his early years, alongside church processions, street scenes, the market. In these works, musicians are often part of the crowd rather than the subject; a village band tucked into a corner, someone playing while others eat and drink and argue.

Alongside the laughter it evokes, you can almost hear the music from ‘The Jazz Band’, a cartoon that captures the spirit of every other modern musician we encounter today.

The ‘Local Musician’ captures the hilarity of a life making music away from the stage. Mild irritation, yet no time for pause, the show going on regardless.

‘Choir Master’ is a masterful scribble of a frantic choir gathering themselves under the baton of an exasperated choir director. There’s a density to the detail that captures the viewer’s attention; from the bottle in the choir director’s pocket to the mouse under the side table. There was no detail to be missed.

Two nights before he died, Miranda was at a musical evening at a nearby restaurant. He was 85, and his final years were spent doing what he typically did. Enjoying good food and music, with a touch of the vibrancy from his cartoons.

Written and edited by Ankrita Shankar

The orchestra will be conducted by Alvin Arumugam, and feature pianist Karl Lutchmayer.

Date: Sunday, May 24th 2026

Time: 6pm

Location: DJB Auditorium at Mount Carmel College

Purchase Tickets Here

On a Sunday morning in April, after a lively start three months ago, the Silver Songbirds, a community singing group for seniors, an initiative by SASF, took the stage at Sabha Bengaluru.

There is a particular kind of courage required to stand before an audience for the first time and sing. It is not the courage of the seasoned performer, accustomed to stages and spotlights, but something softer and more exposed. At their debut concert, the Silver Songbirds of Bengaluru demonstrated that courage before a lively audience that had come out in droves to support them.

The nascent community singing group’s twenty-odd members range from the whimsically self-described (“In my head: pitch perfect. Out loud: pitch adventurous”) to the quietly determined. They were joined on stage by guest singers from Colombo, representing the Soul Sounds Senior Community Choir.

Watch a snippet from a rehearsal here.

The concert was directed by Soundarie David Rodrigo, who flew in from Colombo for the occasion, and co-directed with Bengaluru-based Juanita Jayant.

Soundarie is a Royal College of Music-trained pianist, choral director, composer, and founder of Soul Sounds Academy, Sri Lanka’s leading choral institution. She brought to this ensemble the same high standards she applies everywhere, and has been the thread connecting Bengaluru’s singers to their counterparts across the Palk Strait since the group’s earliest sessions.

Juanita Jayant, a Trinity College of Music (London) Licentiate and protégé of Mrs. Gladys Mohanraj, has been Silver Songbirds’ anchor in Bengaluru; running weekly sessions, holding the group between Soundarie’s visits, ensuring the music stayed alive. She runs her own teaching practice, Keynotes, and holds the conviction that music is the medicine of the mind. The partnership between these two women has given the Silver Songbirds something a new community singing group for seniors rarely has: direction that is exacting yet kind.

The programme was thoughtfully curated. The concert opened with ‘I Believe’, the 1953 declaration of faith whose simple melody carried the kind of sincerity the group has diligently been aiming for. This is a song that asks a great deal from singers still building their confidence, but the Songbirds rose to the challenge. By the time the ensemble reached ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’ from Oklahoma!, something had visibly loosened. There was joy in the room, and a shared sentiment that the morning was, indeed, beautiful. ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly’ and ‘What a Wonderful World’ followed, each song finding its footing more surely than the last. John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ brought the first half of the programme to a close on a note of quiet conviction.

Then Nirupama Menon Rao, the Silver Songbirds and SASF founder, stepped forward as soloist. Her rendition of ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him’ from Jesus Christ Superstar was followed by ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and the bluesy ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man’ from Show Boat. Each was delivered with an impressive clarity and finesse that made the performance compelling.

The programme featured songs with Indian cultural heritage, including renditions of A.R. Rahman’s ‘Chotti Si Asha / Chinna Chinna Asai’, sung in its bilingual Hindi-Tamil form, followed by an evergreen Kannada classic, ‘Neera Bittu Nelada Mele’. First recorded by S.P. Balasubrahmanyam and widely loved for its poeticism, it brought something earthy and local to the surface. The 1958 Tamil folk song, ‘Dingiri Dingale’, that the South Asian Symphony Orchestra performed in Chennai last November, took a folksy detour. This was followed by the recently released ‘Plum Pudding’, a jazz-infused number from Netflix’s 2023 film The Archies.

The latter half of the programme featured some truly iconic songs. ‘Que Sera, Sera’, ‘Edelweiss’ and ‘Whispering Hope’ have been favourites for generations of vocalists and many audience members joined in with enthusiastic singing and humming. ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ delivered the evening’s most cinematic moment before shifting to a more contemplative tone with ‘Sunrise Sunset’ from Fiddler on the Roof and ‘The Impossible Dream’ from Man of La Mancha.

‘Dancing Queen’, with which ABBA has been sending people home happy for nearly fifty years, closed the concert in a spirit of celebration, drawing the audience to sing and partake in this joyful morning. For those that couldn’t attend the performance, there will be more in the near future!

Watch the full performance here:

Silver Songbirds Inaugural Concert Programme Notes

5.13MB ∙ PDF file

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Also in this issue of Accord is an article by Sandhya Mendonca — author, biographer, podcaster, and one of the Silver Songbirds — first published in her column Female Gaze in The Sunday Guardian on 29 March 2026. In it, she describes the weeks before this concert.

Written by Ankrita Shankar

What Serendipity Sounds Like On An Enchanted Evening

by Sandhya Mendonca

This article was first published in the Female Gaze, a column in The Sunday Guardian on 29th March 2026

What was I doing on the stage of the prestigious Lionel Wendt auditorium in Colombo? Singing. Of all the ways I might have imagined returning to Sri Lanka, this was not one of them.

I first came here twenty years ago and have returned half a dozen times since. Something about the country has always drawn me back and tempted me to stay longer. Last week, serendipity — the word itself borrowed from Serendip, the island’s ancient name — brought me back. This time, to sing with a choir of over seventy-five people, none of us younger than fifty.

Music used to simply be the air inside our home. My husband had a melodious and strong singing voice and was a gifted guitarist, and there was rarely a day he did not pick up his instrument, find a chord, and sing. We were both part of the Bangalore Music Group — a warm and talented circle that gathers regularly around a shared love of song. When he died, suddenly and far too soon, I continued to go. It was a way of staying close to something we had shared. And I cherish those monthly gatherings still.

But there is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with being on the fringe. The singers in that group know their repertoire with the ease of long practice. They arrive with their songs already inside them. There is little space, in that dynamic, for someone still wanting to improve. I attend, and I enjoy, and I leave with the faint, familiar ache of someone who loves a thing but has not yet found her place within it.

That ache, perhaps, is what made me reply to the Facebook post about the Silver Songbirds. The choir was founded by Nirupama Menon Rao, who settled in Bengaluru after a long and distinguished life in service: India’s Foreign Secretary from 2009 to 2011, Ambassador to the United States, China and Sri Lanka. She had encountered a seniors’ choir in Colombo and returned home carrying a conviction that something similar needed to exist here — not a gathering of the already accomplished, but a space where older voices could learn, grow, and find each other. The choir took shape under the early guidance of Soundarie David Rodrigo, founder of Soul Sounds Academy in Colombo, one of Sri Lanka’s most respected music institutions. When Soundarie announced that her seniors’ choir was staging a full concert and extended an invitation to the Bengaluru group, a few of us jumped at the opportunity.

The Lionel Wendt is a serious venue. It carries the weight of real performances, real artists, real audiences. Walking into its rehearsal space with barely two months of choir practice behind me required a conscious setting aside of self-consciousness. What helped enormously was the generosity of the Sri Lankan singers.

There is a gentleness to the islanders that made the transition from stranger to fellow chorister easy. They welcomed us with open arms, shared what they knew without condescension, corrected without diminishing. For someone who had spent years feeling peripheral in musical company, it was deeply fulfilling. By the fourth day of rehearsals, we felt we had known each other forever.

The night of the concert, the audience arrived in the spirit of loyal support. They left having witnessed something that surprised them. Standing on that stage, even I — who knew how recently and imperfectly we had come to this — was moved by what the choir produced together. The Broadway repertoire filled the hall with enchantment. The soloists were exceptional. The harmonies held. We emoted the lyrics under the watchful eyes of the artistic director Jerome D’Silva who had put us through the paces with highly entertaining drama.

One moment will stay with me. Seated on the side was a super senior who had been quiet and unsmiling even in the mad gaiety of the green room. For the final number, she rose smiling from ear to ear and singing enthusiastically. I reached and drew her forward, and we sang that last chorus of Oklahoma hand-in-hand with gusto.

After the show, the families gathered around the choir. Bouquets were presented with hugs and squeals of delight. Grandchildren stood with their phones raised, capturing grandparents in a moment of triumph, much as the seniors would have cheered the young ones in kindergarten. It felt like a full circle moment in the cycle of life.

Standing on that stage, in a city my husband and I had once visited together, something shifted in me. The songs that filled the hall that evening were not the songs he used to play — and yet, in some way the music connected to him, to those years, to the life we had shared before silence moved in. It felt like a gentle closing of a door that had been left open for a long time.

Grief does not resolve on a schedule. But sometimes something finds you — a song, a stage, a stranger’s hand in yours — and you realise that you have closure. I had to cross an ocean for it.

As we gear up to perform in Bengaluru for the first time on the 12th of April, I take heart that I have found a thread that connects who I was to who I am now.

After the show, the families gathered around the choir. Bouquets were presented with hugs and squeals of delight. Grandchildren stood with their phones raised, capturing grandparents in a moment of triumph, much as the seniors would have cheered the young ones in kindergarten. It felt like a full circle moment in the cycle of life.

Standing on that stage, in a city my husband and I had once visited together, something shifted in me. The songs that filled the hall that evening were not the songs he used to play — and yet, in some way the music connected to him, to those years, to the life we had shared before silence moved in. It felt like a gentle closing of a door that had been left open for a long time.

Grief does not resolve on a schedule. But sometimes something finds you — a song, a stage, a stranger’s hand in yours — and you realise that you have closure. I had to cross an ocean for it.

As we gear up to perform in Bengaluru for the first time on the 12th of April, I take heart that I have found a thread that connects who I was to who I am now.

Open for Applications: A Week to Play Alongside the Best

SASF Youth Workshop & Concert · May 17th-24th 2026 · Bengaluru, India

There is a moment in the development of any young musician when technical proficiency, accumulated through years of solitary practice, needs to be tested against something larger; an ensemble, a conductor or experienced performer who has spent decades doing what you are only beginning to imagine.

The SASF Youth Workshop and Concert, running from 17 to 24 May 2026 in Bengaluru, is designed to create exactly that moment.

This inaugural week-long residency, organised in association with the Department of Music at Christ University, brings together the principal musicians of the South Asian Symphony Orchestra as faculty mentors, alongside an international roster of distinguished pedagogues spanning a multitude of conservatories and continents. This is how orchestral culture is actually transmitted: not in the classroom but in the rehearsal room, in the pressure of a concert deadline, in the experience of listening to the player beside you, who knows instinctively what you are still learning to hear.

Participants will receive individual tutorials, engage in rehearsals, work through general musicianship sessions, and, crucially, participate in a performance alongside their mentors at the end of the week. The workshop covers violin, viola, cello, string bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, percussion, piano, voice (choral singing), and conducting.

For SASF, the workshop is also an extension of its founding purpose. The Foundation was built on the conviction that music, and orchestral practice in particular, is one of the most powerful vehicles for cultural understanding across South Asia. A community singing group for seniors across the India-Sri Lanka connection and a youth orchestra drawing together young musicians from across the region are expressions of this same impulse.

More details can be found on the workshop brochure by clicking the link below.

Applications are open now for instrumentalists, vocalists and conductors.

Dates: May 17th-24th 2026

Ages: 15-35

Workshop Brochure and Application

Beethoven’s cello sonatas are a musical life story in miniature. Written over more than 30 years, they span all three of the composer’s creative periods—from the elegance of his early works through the bold confidence of his middle period to the searching, intimate language of his late style. Along the way, Beethoven reshapes the cello sonata into a true dialogue, with the cello and piano as equal partners in conversation. By turns energetic, lyrical, playful and deeply reflective, these sonatas offer listeners a rare chance to experience Beethoven’s imagination not in fragments but as a compelling journey.​

Cellist Raman Ramakrishnan is an internationally respected chamber musician, best known as a founding member of the Horszowski Trio and the Daedalus Quartet, with whom he has toured widely and recorded extensively. He is an artiste member of the Boston Chamber Music Society, serves on the faculty of the Bard College Conservatory of Music, New York, and has performed at major venues and festivals across the US, Europe and Asia.​

Pianist Stephen Prutsman has been described as one of the most innovative musicians of his time. A winner at the Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth Piano Competitions in the early ’90s and moving seamlessly from classical to jazz to world music styles as a pianist and composer, Prutsman continues to explore and seek common ground and relationships in the music of all cultures and languages.

16 March — Mumbai, Experimental Theatre, NCPA Co-presented with the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation

18 March — Chennai, Museum Theatre

19 March — Bengaluru, Sabha

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Imagined Journeys to Cashmere: Lalla Rookh and Her Story [Part 2]

by Nirupama Rao

This is Part 2 of this article, continued from the first part, published in the previous issue of Accord. To read Part 1, click here.

In Berlin: a grand feast

Music and Orientalist spectacle is never far from the story of Lalla Rookh, considering that many composers created their own musical interpretations of its narrative, choosing different parts of the story. They included besides Felicien David, Robert Schumann, Henry Clay, and Artur Rubinstein. The earliest known musical presentation of Lalla Rookh however, predates all these composers. At the Chateau Royal in Berlin, in January 1821, a grand ‘festspiel’ was staged in the apartments of Frederick I, overlooking the royal palace garden, in which members of the Royal House of Prussia and their guests, the future Tsar and Tsarina of Russia, Grand Duke Nicholas and his bride, Grand Duchess Alexandra participated. In fact, the Grand Duchess, who was also the daughter of King Frederick of Prussia played the role of Lalla Rookh.

In this ‘festspiel’, the different stories in Lalla Rookh were enacted through tableaux vivants, songs and dances altogether presenting a grand and memorable spectacle causing the future Empress of Russia (who was often referred to as Lalla Rookh on many occasions in the future, including by the poet Pushkin) to exclaim (with a sigh), “Is it then all over? Are we at the close of all that has given so much delight?” [16] This was obviously an unparalleled spectacle of oriental costume and adornment stretching till four in the morning, with 186 characters and the tableaux vivants of sixteen figures “in which every costume and detail was apparently so realistic that the audience felt itself completely carried away to the gorgeous East... and there was but one opinion upon the taste, elegance and beauty of the entertainment, for it surpassed by far all that had ever been seen of this kind.” [17] And true to the spirit of Lalla Rookh, there was also a “Fete des Roses”. A souvenir was subsequently printed in Berlin [18] on the orders of the King, to commemorate this grand event and copies of it reveal the munificence of the enactment: there are twenty-three hand-colored plates that show the splendid costumes and the chief characters, including Lalla Rookh and her bridegroom Aliris. The wealth of detail in the costumes of the various actors in the pageant, indicates a careful study of Indian paintings and representations together with the use of genuine Indian textiles, silk and wool, and embroideries to create the attire worn. Lamentably, the music composed for the occasion by Gaspare Spontini lacked any Oriental flourish, or melodic adornments and is largely forgotten today.

The grand spectacle at the Prussian court led to the translation of Lalla Rookh into German and also provided for its introduction into the Russian imagination. The national poet of Germany, Goethe, was also immensely taken with the news from Berlin of the festspiel involving members of the royal court and the exotic allure of the story of the Eastern princess. The ‘romance, intrigue and mystery’ of Lalla Rookh was thus exerting a strong attraction on European audiences thirsty for a glimpse of the unknown East.

Extending however, beyond the mysteries and exoticism depicted by Moore, work was underway to promote a serious study of the Orient, and India, beyond orientalist stereotypes. The first Boden Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford was established in 1832 and a number of travel narratives and letters were published with considerable depth of cultural detail and seeking to present a more realistic portrait of India that transcended western fantasizing. The import of Indian textiles, chintzes and Kashmiri shawls also provided the texture and feel of distant climes and were considered hallmarks of taste and distinction.

The music of the East was also being introduced to western audiences. The East India Company’s various settlements and ‘factories’ in western and northern India became venues for musical interaction with the locals and exposure to Indian, particularly Hindustani, musical and dance traditions. The Company, it is said, did not quibble over the cost of elephants in those early days, and on “public occasions, such as the annual parade to mark the birthday of the sovereign, it was the practice (of the Company ‘nabobs’) to hire a full ‘naubat’.” [19] A number of what came to be known as ‘Hindostannie’ airs were produced involving cooperation between Indian linguists and musicians and Europeans particularly in the kingdom of Oudh. One woman singer from Kashmir, called Khanum achieved much celebrity as a nautch dancer to army officers, and as a source of Indian tunes to women collectors. European performers dressed in Indian costumes while performing these Indian songs, and received even the commendation of Warren Hastings. [20]

Brightest vale

In his rendition of scenes from Kashmir, Moore conjures the image of roses, of the Sultana Nourmahal (the Empress Noor Jehan, wife of the Emperor Jehangir) wandering among flowers, feeding small singing fishes in marble basins. Feramorz the minstrel, singing his song, tells the story of “The Light of the Haram” (Noormahal herself), beginning thus:

Who has not heard of the Vale of CASHMERE,
With its roses the brightest that earth every gave,
Its temples, and grottos, and fountains as clear
As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave? [21]

...to see it by moonlight, - when mellowly shines
The light o’er its palaces, gardens and shrines;
When the water-falls gleam like a quick fall of stars,
And the nightingale’s hymn from the Isle of Chenars
Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet..

..And what a wilderness of flowers!
It seem’d as though from all the bowers
And fairest fields of all the year,
The mingled spoil were scatter’d here.
The lake too like a garden breathes
With the richbuds that o’er it lie, -
As if a shower of fairy wreaths
Had fall’n upon it from the sky!

..Who in the moonlight and music thus sweetly may glide
O’er the Lake of CASHMERE, with that One by his side!
If Woman can make the worst wilderness dear,
Think, think what a Heav’n she must make of CASHMERE! [22]

Moore calls ‘Cashmere’ a heaven on ground, the unequalled, every spot ‘holy ground’ - suffused by the smell of roses from which ‘Attar Gul’ or attar of roses is distilled, the Happy Valley, made even more beautiful by the ‘splendid domes and saloons of the Shalimar’.

These descriptions of ‘fair Cashmere’ provided the ‘canvas upon which future European travelers to Kashmir painted much of their story’. [23] The identification of Kashmir as the Paradise of the Indies and the Happy Valley however also persisted with tendencies to describe its populace in an Orientalist manner.

These then, were images enshrined in the Western imagination throughout the period of the ‘Raj’. Travelers to Kashmir throughout the nineteenth century - writers like Vigne – referring to Lalla Rookh, said that ‘there is great justice in the ideas of scenery to be collected from the poem’. Explorers like Moorcroft and Trebeck, Hugel and Jacquemont sought to provide further intellectual ballast to the interest and curiosity about this part of the subcontinent abutting and indeed merging into High Asia. Artists like William Carpenter had also read Moore’s story before visiting Kashmir as would be indicated from the title of one of his paintings entitled: ‘The Shalimar garden; scene of the festivities at the marriage of Lalla Rookh, daughter of Aurunzebe’. Years later, Jawaharlal Nehru in his Autobiography would describe how Kashmir haunted him, quoting Walter de la Mare whose words in turn, seem to draw inspiration from Moore:

‘Yea, in my mind these mountains rise,
Their perils dyed with evening’s rose:
And still my ghost sits at my eyes,
And Thirsts for their untroubled snows’.

Nehru spoke of how the ‘loveliness of the land enthralled me and cast an enchantment all about me. I wandered about like one possessed and drunk with beauty, and the intoxication of it filled my mind.’ Kashmir to him, embodied feminine beauty, a supremely lovely woman with ‘a hundred faces and innumerable aspects, ever-changing’. Moore would not have disapproved.

Nehru’s description of the view of the Vale of Kashmir from the Pir Panjal range on the road from Srinagar to Jammu is expressed in a similar vein:

‘The next morning we left Srinagar and sped towards Jammu. The road left the valley and mounted up the Pir Panjal. As we went higher, the panorama spread before us, and broader vistas came to view. We stood near the mouth of the tunnel and had a last look at the valley below. There lay the Vale of Kashmir, so famous in song and history, in its incomparable loveliness. A thin mist covered part of it, and a soft light toned down the hard edges of the picture. Above the clouds rose snow-capped peaks, and down the valley below came the faint and distant sound of running water. We bade a silent farewell..’ [24]

This passage recalls one from “Lalla Rookh” where Moore speaks of “the fresh airs and enchanting scenery of that Valley, which the Persians justly called the Unequalled. ...the grottos, hermitages and miraculous mountains,..make every spot of that region holy ground” and where he goes on to describe “the countless waterfalls, that rush in to the Valley from all those high and romantic mountains that encircle it..” and “the wonders and glories of the most lovely country under the sun..” [25]

While Nehru, a Kashmiri, could lay claim to a sensibility which drew its inspiration from identification with the land and landscape of Kashmir, his writer’s imagination was also influenced no doubt by the visualized Kashmir in Western, particularly English popular literature.

Gateway to Inner Asia

During the nineteenth century, Kashmir, as it was more and more ‘discovered’ also became a natural stepping-stone to Central Asia. Moore had, perhaps, unconsciously heralded this in his treatment of the theme central to Lalla Rookh – that of the alliance of marriage between a Mogul princess and a Prince of Bokhara or Samarkand. Beyond the happy valley lay the high mountain fastness of the Karakoram with its passes functioning as gateways to Turkestan. This became the arena then for staging of the imperial Great Game and players like Curzon and Younghusband exemplified the transcendence of power and geopolitics over the romance and poesy of Nurmahal and Jehangir and Lalla Rookh and Aliris. The ongoing differences with Pakistan over Kashmir, have of course, distanced the Kashmir Valley from its time-tested links with Central Asia. The present is very different from the past and the mountain caravans of yesteryear are mirages that elude our grasp.

There is certainly nostalgia for the charm and innocence of the Kashmiri climes elaborated by Moore and interpreted in the various operatic and musical versions of his work. Simply put, Kashmir is not Cashmere, it is a very different place. Even images of the State in the Indian popular imagination have changed. The depiction of the Valley as a place of sylvan retreat, of eternal sunshine over snow capped mountains, glimmering lakes and heroes and heroines in shikaras, a romanticized Indian frontier region, has faded, its place taken by darker, somber narratives of love and longing in a time of violence and alienation. Thus, the ‘Cashmere’ of Noormahal and Jehangir, of Lalla Rookh and Feramorz is a Paradise Lost. Bollywood meets Kashmir today in a spirit very different from Filmistan’s dealings with the State in films like Junglee and Kashmir ki Kali, hits from the sixties [26].

But humans will dream and dream we will of that enchanted Kashmir. While capturing screen shots of Lalla Rookh and her sojourn to the Vale of Cashmere, and reading Thomas Moore, I am reminded of these lines from Led Zeppelin:

Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream
Heed the path that led me to that place, yellow desert stream
My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon, I will return again
Sure as the dust that floats high in June, when movin’ through Kashmir.

Orientalism it is true, does not do real justice to the East and its fascinating complexities, and Moore’s work is no exception, but who would not yearn for a ‘Feast of Roses’ on Dal Lake or in the Shalimar and dream about caravans crossing the high passes of the Karakoram, destined for Kashgar, Khotan and Yarkand and steeped in the lore of the Silk Road?

Citations:

[16] [17] Florence Parbury: “An Emerald Set With Pearls”, London, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd., 1900, pg. 14, 15
[18] Lalla Rookh, ein Festspiel mit Gesang und Tanz, Berlin 1822
[19] [20] Ian Woodfied: The Music of the Raj, A Social and Economic History of Music in Late Eighteenth Century Anglo-­Indian Society, Oxford University Press, 2001
[21] Moore, Lalla Rookh, 1817, pg. 295
[22] Ibid, pgs. 295-301
[23] Kenneth Iain MacDonald: Kashmir in J. Speake (ed) (2003) The Literature of Travel and Exploration, London, Routledge
[24] Excerpted from Jawaharlal Nehru: An Autobiography; Oxford University Press and Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund, New Delhi and the National Herald, New Delhi, 24-­31 July 1940, quoted in “Kashmir: Garden of the Himalayas” by Raghuvir Singh, New York, Thames & Hudson, 1983
[25] Moore, “Lalla Rookh”, Pg. 339 (1817 edition)
[26] Filmistan is a term that perhaps better expresses the Hindi film industry of the early decades after Indian independence. Bollywood is a much more contemporary name for the industry.

Voices in Formation: The Silver Songbirds of Bengaluru

The first rehearsal for the Silver Songbirds of Bengaluru, SASF’s very own senior choir, took place on the sunny afternoon of 16th January in central Bengaluru. One by one, members arrived, lyric sheets and water in hand. The group had been gathering online since the previous December; its WhatsApp group temporarily settling on the name ‘Sing for Joy’. The name eventually chosen, ‘The Silver Songbirds of Bengaluru’, came later, proposed by Ambassador Nirupama Rao who noted it had “more of a ring, timbre and strength.” “Silver Songbirds sounds so nice,” one member replied. Another observed it was “far more apt and not popularly used before.” In a small act of naming, a collective identity had formed.

A month of rehearsals in, and the choir has found its footing in within a longstanding tradition of choral singing in India. The WhatsApp group is abuzz with snippets of choir members practicing outside of meetings, of songs shared that members are hopeful will be included in the repertoire. There is a warming sense of sustained interest and joy to be a part of the group. As well as a desire to practice and improve skills.

A Tradition with Deep Roots

Choral singing as an organised social and artistic practice has a long and layered history. Choral societies flourished across Victorian Britain and colonial outposts alike, including India, seeing a rise in choirs that brought Western harmonic traditions into the subcontinent. Music schools established by Christian missionaries introduced part-singing to communities who had rich solo classical traditions but few indigenous equivalents to the European choral form.

The emergence of dedicated choral societies in cities like Mumbai, Chennai, and Kolkata has favoured performance of Western sacred and secular repertoire or Western classics from theatre or musicals. What remained (and remains) conspicuously sparse, however, is a choral tradition that seriously engages with India’s own musical heritage. Indian classical music is often a solo art. The relationship between raga and the individual voice and the improvisational nature of performance. These are not easily transposed into the score-bound, harmony-centred world of the choir. The result has been a curious gap: a country with over a billion voices, many of them trained and musical, with relatively little native choral repertoire to call its own.

Reclaiming an Indian Voice

The Silver Songbirds of Bengaluru first began as a community project to provide a creative and social space for an often overlooked demographic. It has expanded its ambition to be the first choir in India doing this kind of work seriously: reclaiming an Indian identity within a choral form.

That ambition has practical implications. Hindi film songs such as ‘Kaisi Paheli Zindagani’ and ‘Plum Pudding’ have entered the conversation. The group has rehearsed ‘Dingiri Dingale’, a beloved Tamil song dating back to 1958, which, notably was once arranged by choral director Augustine Paul and performed by The South Asian Symphony Orchestra. They reflect the diversity of a country so vast, no one language and musical style can represent. It also raises some difficult questions: how does one arrange a melody conceived for solo voice, sometimes using microtonal inflections specific to their tradition, into a choral arrangement that Western notation can accurately represent? That a community choir with such varied taste can do justice to? The answer will require arrangement, attention to language and accent, and a willingness to innovate and experiment. It is work that no existing body of sheet music has yet done.

The Repertoire as It Stands

The current programme of works being rehearsed offers a variety of choral standards and experimental choices. From the Lerner and Loewe canon come ‘Wouldn’t It Be Loverly’ and ‘Get Me to the Church on Time’ from My Fair Lady, both pieces with strong melodic lines, considerable rhythmic character, and the kind of theatrical diction that rewards careful enunciation. From Rodgers and Hammerstein, ‘Edelweiss’ and ‘The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music’ offer opportunities for breath control and sustained legato phrasing. ‘Sunrise, Sunset’ from Fiddler on the Roof brings a meditative quality and words that speak of the passage of time and the irreversibility of ageing, themes that aren’t lost on this ensemble.

John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ and Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World’ occupy the programme’s more reflective numbers. ‘I Believe,’ with its affirmative spirit, and ‘Dingiri Dingale,’ with its South Asian provenance, complete the programming for the season.

Life Unfinished, Legacy in the Making

The members of the Silver Songbirds are, for the most part, people in their sixties, seventies, and beyond, individuals who have raised families, built careers, navigated the full complexity of post-Independence India, and arrived at this clubhouse in Domlur for their latest adventure yet. Group singing exercises breath control, coordination, and cognition. It creates shared focus. It is, in a rather literal sense, good for the brain.

But the argument for this choir goes beyond the therapeutic. In India, senior citizens are too often positioned as custodians of the past rather than makers of the present. Projects that involve active participation rejects that expectation. When a member misses a rehearsal there’s the impulse to remain part of something, to contribute, to not fall behind, and this is itself a kind of testimony. Life, the Silver Songbirds seem to be saying, is not finished yet.

The Road Ahead

There is technical work still to be done. Intonation requires sustained attention. The balance between voice parts remains uneven, partly because male voices are few. Arrangements that do justice to Indian music within a choral framework will need to be either commissioned or created from within the group.

None of that diminishes what is already visible, and doing something that matters: building a choral culture in India that takes Indian voices seriously, that draws on the full range of what those voices have absorbed across a lifetime, and that insists on the creative agency of people whom the culture might otherwise be content to regard as its audience rather than its participants.

On the Horizon

In other news, with summer on the horizon, SASF will be hosting it’s first youth workshop, a 2 week program in Bengaluru, where SASO’s musicians and visiting musicians will be mentoring budding young musicians from across South Asia. Programs like this are a staple in the western musician’s education, a backbone for young musical development and mentorship, one that South Asia has missed out on for far too long.

by Nirupama Rao

In 1817, an Irish poet, Thomas Moore who had never set foot in India, closeted himself in a Derbyshire village near the stately home of an aristocrat acquaintance, to write the story of a fictional Mogul princess, she of the tulip cheeks or Lalla Rookh as he called her. Moore’s poem captured the popular imagination with its rendering of exotic scenes and colorful images from the distant Orient. More importantly, it introduced the valley of Kashmir to the Western mind, providing the “canvas upon which future European travelers to Kashmir painted much of their story” [1].

A succession of writers and music composers after Moore were taken with the story of Lalla Rookh and the work soon saw itself in many interpretations. It became in in its popularity a ‘Sound of Music’ of the nineteenth century. Its association with the beautiful valley of Kashmir, accentuated the veneer of romance and youthful love and beauty with which it came to imagined. For instance, in the early 1900s, a spirited Englishwoman, Florence Parbury wrote “An Emerald Set With Pearls” extoling the beauties of Kashmir and the poetry of “Lalla Rookh”. Parbury traveled to Kashmir, sketching and painting its natural beauty and devoting extensive space in her book to the story by Moore. She added musical scores for some of the poems in the book, particularly those with references to the Vale of Kashmir [2].

Her account commences with paeans of praise to the Valley, drawing reference to ancient Indian and Persian poets writing of “a wondrous land tucked away in the Himalayan Range”, and describing its charms by such names as “Kachemire-be-Nazeer” or the Unequalled, the “Garden of Paradise” and the “Emerald set with Pearls”. Mentioning the early European traveler, Francois Bernier who visited the Vale of Kashmir in 1664 with the royal suite of the Mogul Emperor, she says:

“Those only who have seen Kashmir in the beauty of its seasons can appreciate the truth of these old-time poets, none of whom however, of any nationality, have ever done justice to this delightful country and immortalized its lakes, flower, valleys, streams and fountains as perfectly as Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, did in his famous ‘Lalla Rookh’..”[3]

Parbury bemoaned the fact that few had heard of Moore’s work at the time of her writing her book. In fact, by the turn of the century, in late-Victorian England, the poem had lost much of the tremendous popularity it had enjoyed in the decades after its publication in 1817. Her effort therefore, was to “rouse a fresh interest in the poet’s beautiful work, in the form of a souvenir of Kashmir”[4].

To corroborate Parbury’s lament, the story of Lalla Rookh was lost to most modern audiences until the Opera Lafayette, a Washington-based performing company, revived its operatic version by the French composer, Felicien David in 2013. The music from David’s opera was also recorded by the company on the Naxos label and released in 2014. The performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and at the Lincoln Center in New York had the characters in the opera dressed in Indian costumes by Poonam Bhagat of New Delhi, and introduced also the element of Indian classical dancing onto the stage during the performance with the dancers of Kalanidhi Dance of Washington.

An imagined India

Moore, the author of “Lalla Rookh” never went to India and yet ventured to write a work that inter-wove courtly Indian customs and manners, history and landscape with Persian lore and legend. Writing his book over a period of six years between 1811 and 1817, he had extensively researched available scholarly material on India as the extensive footnotes and bibliography seen in “Lalla Rookh” would indicate. Access to the research materials was provided by the Anglo-Irish peer Francis Rawdon, the Earl of Moira at his mansion, Donington Hall in Derbyshire, accessed by Moore in writing the book, while living in a simple cottage near the residence of his aristocrat benefactor. Francis Rawdon subsequently went on to become Governor General of India as the Marquess of Hastings from 1813 to 1823. It is believed that Moore had hoped very much to be included in Hastings’ entourage when he departed for India and that he was deeply disappointed when this did not happen. Moore was never to set eyes on India.

In writing his book, Moore received encouragement from a number of friends, including his more famous contemporary, Lord Byron whose ease and eloquence of poetic expression and bold and revolutionary choice of themes for his writing were renowned, and evoked a sense of considerable insecurity in Moore. Yet, unprecedented for his time, Moore received an advance of 3000 guineas for the book –a sound business decision by his publisher, since the book went into at least five editions in the first year of publication (1817) becoming the toast of England and the Continent.

Gems and Pomegranates

It also won great popularity in the United States. The story line of Lalla Rookh – that of a privileged Mogul princess departing Delhi in a magnificent cavalcade crossing from the heat and dust of the plains to the majestic Himalayan mountains and then into Kashmir, lent itself well to showcasing in pageants and theatrical spectacle. An illustration of this is provided by the contest held in the 1880’s, by American showman Adam Forepaugh to choose the ‘handsomest woman in America’ who could play the role of Lalla Rookh, the winner being awarded 10,000 dollars. Louise Montague, 25 years old, from New York, won the title. Nature it was said, had ‘not dealt to Miss Montague a sparing hand’ ; she could boast of an ‘excellent type of beauty’ and a ‘face so strikingly beautiful that one wonders how so much loveliness can be concentrated in one human being’. [5] The attraction personified in the image of a young and lovely Lalla Rookh can be seen in the following photograph of the English stage actress Kate Vaughn from the 1870’s. It is not clear whether she was playing a singing role as would normally have been assumed from the various musical renditions of the story since she is dressed in fashionable Victorian clothes complete with a corset to emphasize her waist which would have made singing impossible! This would suggest that the character of Lalla Rookh was much sought after essentially for her show-stopping regalia, recalling a princess of the Orient. Vaughn wears a plume on her head dress which is intricately decorated, and a veil to suggest her Eastern character, and distinctly pronounced jewelry.

What was the world that Moore sought to create? Perhaps it is best summed up by this passage:

“A gleam of Bokhara’s vaunted gold, of all the gems of Samarkand.. where is the Orient? Where does it begin and end? Hunt in vain for a map; at one moment it might be mysterious Cathay, at another enchanted Persia, or a Persia which extends beyond Araby, beyond Abyssinia, even to India..Its frontiers are the veil of the harem, the walls of sunlit and jasmine-scented gardens where the nightingale eternally warbles to the rose. The Beloved guards its boundaries, she of ruby lips, of teeth like pearls, and ringlets like hyacinths. Her brows are an archer’s bow, her arrows the glances that speed from it. She watches over hooris, who weave their dancing way through innumerable courtyards, adorned with diamonds, nourished by the dew of heaven. And always the pomegranates are melting with sweetness.” [6]

This is the vision of the Orient that captured the imagination of writers and lay people alike in the Western world of the nineteenth century. It is the world illustrated in the poster of Lalla Rookh’s departure from Delhi as shown in the great show of Adam Forepaugh. [7] The picture is ‘one unbroken line of splendor’ [8]: dancing girls and elephants, mahouts and lancers, an adoring populace, the bejeweled and beautiful princess on a caparisoned elephant, Mughal India meeting Barnum and Bailey.

Moore’s work cannot however, be dismissed as the scattered musings of a dilettante. Firstly, it was the product of research from materials available to a European audience in that era. Beginning his arduous endeavor, Moore wrote to a friend: “I shall now take to my poem and do something, I hope, that will place me above the vulgar herd both of wordlings and critics; but you shall hear from me again, when I get among the maids of Cashmere, the sparkling springs of Rochabad, and the fragrant banquets of the Peris.” [9] Even the name of the work, “Lalla Rookh” was unusual, and Moore’s friend, Byron lauded him for choosing a “tough title” [10]. Secondly, the themes addressed in Lalla Rookh are not trivial or merely romantic. While the connecting narrative of the poem basically concerns the marriage of Lalla Rookh, the princess of Delhi, to Aliris, the Prince of Bucharia or Bokhara, and the story of her journey from Delhi to the Vale of Cashmere where she is to be married to the Prince, this narrative is interspersed with four long poems: The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, the Fire Worshippers, Paradise and the Peri and the Light of the Haram. All these are recited to her, accompanied on a stringed instrument called the kitar, by Feramorz, who presents himself as a Kashmiri troupadour, and who steals her heart along the journey to Kashmir. Happily, he turns out to be the prince to whom she is to be married, on the very day of the marriage ceremony.

The four long poems in the story are where the themes of religious fanaticism and despotism, the violence and injustice of conquest and imperial domination, the tragedy of star-crossed love, and romanticism cast in the Persian mode, are all intertwined. Mokanna, the veiled, lustful, degenerate religious prophet of the Khorassan poem is oddly reminiscent of an evil leader of the ISIS, although Moore was believed to be targeting the excesses of the Jacobins in evolutionary France in this story of the beautiful and virtuous Zelica (Zuleika) who is seduced and corrupted by the evil Mokanna. Mokanna presents himself as a prophet and savior who claims he has to ostensibly hide his “beauty” under a veil because it is so blinding, but is actually camouflaging a horribly disfigured body and an equally malformed soul that perpetrates great cruelty on all who fall under his spell. Similarly, in the Fire Worshippers which recounts the struggles of the Zoroastrian people against the Arab conquest of Iran, Moore is thought to have allegorized the rebellion of the Irish people against British rule and domination, and their quest for liberty.

Returning to the story of Lalla Rookh and her minstrel beloved, one is struck by many humorous references in the narrative to courtly Indian life and manners, often recalling popular entertainment in Hindi film. A few examples will illustrate this. The delineation of the character of Fadladeen (Fazluddin), ‘Great Nazir or Chamberlain of the Haram’, who accompanies the Princess Lalla Rookh to Kashmir is one of them. This is how Moore describes him:

‘Fadladeen was the judge of every thing, - from the penciling of a Circassian’s eyelids to the deepest questions of science and literature; from the mixture of a conserve of rose-leaves to the composition of an epic poem..His political conduct and opinions were founded upon that line of Sadi, -“Should the Prince at noon-day say, it is night, declare that you behold the moon and stars” [11].

The last few lines recall what in the Persian and Urdu tradition is called khushamdi, or ‘hukum ka ghulam’ or the essence of obsequiousness when it comes to flattering, or agreeing with your masters. Elswhere, the minstrel Feramorz is described as “graceful as that idol of women, Crishna – such as he appears to their young imaginations, heroic, beautiful, breathing music from his very eyes, and exalting the religion of his worshippers into love” [12]. There are touches of humor too, which are not bereft of the Indian touch: when it is said that a series of disappointments and accidents had happened to Fadladeen during the journey, for one, couriers stationed between Delhi and the Western coast of India had ‘failed in their duty’ to ‘secure a constant supply of mangoes for the Royal Table’ and ‘to eat any mangoes but those of Mazagong was, of course, impossible’. [13] In another example, the chamberlain’s personal copy of the Koran has been mislaid by his Koran-bearer three whole days, and to all this the last straw is when, owing to the ‘obstinacy of the cooks, the pepper of Canara is put in his dishes instead of the cinnamon of Serendib. [14] Beyond Lahore at the end of the Grand Trunk Road, the ‘loss of the good road they had hitherto traveled’ leads to Fadladeen being ‘very near cursing Jehan-guire (of blessed memory!) for not having continued his delectable alley of trees, at least as far as the mountains of Cashmere’. And, the classic touch of the burlesque is provided when Fadladeen at one point of the story, goes

into a panegyric upon all Mussulman sovereigns, more particularly his august and Imperial master, Aurangzebe, - the wisest and best of the descendants of Timur, -who, among other great things he had done for mankind, had given to him, Fadladeen, the very profitable posts of Betel-carrier and Taster of Sherbets to the Emperor, Chief Holder of the Girdle of beautiful Forms’ (his business being at stated periods, to measure the ladies of the Haram by a sort of regulation-girdle, whose limits it was not thought graceful to exceed. If any of them outgrew this standard of shape, they were reduced by abstinence till they came within its bounds) [15].

Maids of Cashmere

Readers of Lalla Rookh, soon after its publication, were obviously star struck by its many descriptions of the beauty of the Indies, and particularly of Kashmir with all its allusions of an earthly paradise. The scene of lighted lamps floating on the river, which Lalla Rookh encounters on her journey, inspired a number of European artists during the nineteenth century. So too, the theme of Kashmir or Cashmere as it was widely called, became the popular fixation. The subject of the Indian bayaderes or dancers, was sure to draw crowds. The ballerina Marie Taglioni in Le Dieu et La Bayadere, sometimes called the Maid of Cashmere, mesmerized audiences with a cashmere shawl draped around her shoulders, jewelry on her forehead and on her arms in the Indian style, and her ballerina dress ornamented with distinctly zardozi-like embroidery.

Indeed, the whole subject of Indian dance and dancers was one hotly debated and scrutinized as a study of press coverage and critical commentary on the first ever tour of Indian dancers and musicians to continental Europe and England in 1838 would testify. The statue of the eighteen year-old dancer, the beautiful Amany, sculpted by Jean-Auguste Barre in 1838 illustrates the impact made by devadasis from near Pondicherry on often-mesmerized western audiences eager to see the real form of Indian dance.

This concludes Part 1 of this article. The second part will be published in the subsequent issue of Accord.

Citations:

[1] Kenneth Iain MacDonald: “Kashmir” in J. Speake (ed) (2003) The Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia, London: Routledge.
[2] [3] [4] Florence Parbury: “An Emerald Set With Pearls”, London, Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd., 1900
[5] The Atlanta Constitution, October 9, 1881
[6] Excerpted from the jacket of “Poems of the Orient”, CD, Naxos, 1999
[7] Picture from the collection of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, September 14, 2014
[8] Lalla Rookh, 1817 edition, Page 2
[9] Allan Gregory: Paper (2006): Thomas Moore’s Orientalism, Newstead Abbey and Irish Byron Societies
[10] Ibid. Although Robert Nye (1989) in the Memoirs of Lord Byron: A Novel expresses also what is the common version of Byron’s view of Lalla Rookh: “a box of Turkish delights with the sugar mostly stolen from me”.
[11] Lalla Rookh, 1817, pg. 4
[12] Ibid, pg. 7 Moore describes Krishna as the ‘Indian Apollo’
[13] Ibid, pg. 124
[14] Ibid, pg. 125
[15] Ibid, pg. 290

The Silver Songbirds of Bengaluru

Voices Together in Harmony - an initiative of the South Asian Symphony Foundation - took its first steps in Bangalore over two beautiful days.

On the 16th and 17th of January, Milay Sur, the Bangalore Seniors Choir, gathered for its first rehearsals. True to its name, the ensemble began with voices meeting, listening, blending, and discovering harmony—not only in music, but in shared spirit.

What unfolded went beyond rehearsal. The room filled with lived experience, curiosity, laughter, and a genuine willingness to learn. Voices that may have rested for years found their way back into the open. Individuals arrived separately and, gently, began to sound like a community.

The choir was guided in this first step by Soundarie David Rodrigo, whose warmth, clarity, and deep understanding of choral music set the tone beautifully. She was struck by the group’s commitment and the quality of singing she heard—an encouraging sign for a choir just finding its feet.

This marks only the beginning. There is much to learn, many hours of practice ahead, and hopes to welcome more voices into the circle—especially more men, to join the brave few who showed up and sang with such good cheer. Most importantly, the choir has begun.

Milay Sur aspires to be a space of belonging, joy, and shared purpose—a place where age is a source of richness, not limitation, and where music becomes a bridge between memory, friendship, and hope.

With gratitude to everyone who took this first step together, the wish is for these voices to grow in confidence and strength, and for Milay Sur to take root and flourish in Bangalore.

Voices together. In harmony.

Strings Across the Ocean: Listening to History, Listening to One Another

On the evening of 28 November at the Bangalore International Centre, the South Asian Symphony Foundation hosted its Symphony Lecture, a space conceived not merely as an adjunct to performance but as a place for reflection—where music is understood not only as sound, but as history, memory, and a mode of ethical attention. The lecture was delivered by Professor Katherine Butler Schofield, one of the world’s most original and illuminating historians of South Asian music, whose work has transformed how we think about sound, culture, and the movement of ideas across time and geography.

Professor Schofield is Professor of South Asian Music and History and Head of the Department of Music at King’s College London. Trained originally as a violinist and viola player, she began her musical life within the Western classical tradition before encountering Hindustani music and, as she herself often says, falling in love with its depth, virtuosity, and histories. That encounter changed the course of her intellectual life. Over the past two decades, she has immersed herself in the musical worlds of South Asia, from the courts of the Mughal empire to the colonial and postcolonial soundscapes of the subcontinent and the Indian Ocean world.

Her scholarship is marked by extraordinary range and rigor. Drawing on Persian, Hindi, English, and visual sources, she reconstructs musical lives that are otherwise ephemeral—musicians, courtesans, patrons, and listeners whose stories rarely survive in conventional archives. She is a Fellow of both the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Historical Society, and a recipient of major grants from the European Research Council and the British Academy. Her most recent book, Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India: Histories of the Ephemeral, 1748–1858, described by William Dalrymple as a “masterpiece,” was a finalist for the 2025 Association of American Publishers Prose Award and has since received the Otto Kinkeldey Award of the American Musicological Society, the highest international honour in the field of music studies.

Yet what distinguishes Professor Schofield’s work is not only its scholarly distinction, but its moral imagination. For her, music is not a decorative art. It is a way of understanding how societies live with difference—religious, linguistic, cultural—and how they negotiate power, intimacy, and belonging. That sensibility shaped every aspect of her Symphony Lecture, titled Strings Across the Ocean: Musical Connections Between India and Europe.

At the heart of the lecture was a deceptively simple proposition: musical instruments travel. They move across oceans and deserts, through trade routes and empires, across languages and belief systems. And when they do, they carry with them ideas, techniques, and ways of listening. Instruments, Professor Schofield argued, are never purely local. They are at once rooted and global, shaped as much by human movement as by geography. To understand their histories is to see cultural identity not as fixed or sealed, but as layered, relational, and porous.

She began by situating music as a universal human practice—older than writing, present in every known society. From there, she turned to the question of classification: how cultures have sought to make sense of instruments and sound. In a striking moment, she traced the modern Western system of musical instrument classification, widely known as the Hornbostel–Sachs system, back to its intellectual roots in the ancient Sanskrit Nāṭyaśāstra. This lineage, she explained, was transmitted through the work of the nineteenth-century Bengali musicologist Sourindro Mohan Tagore, who translated Sanskrit concepts, commissioned models of Indian instruments, and sent them to museums and scholars in Europe. What is often taken to be a purely Western musicological framework thus carries within it a deep South Asian genealogy.

From theory, the lecture moved into history through two great instrumental journeys. The first was that of the short-necked plucked lute, an instrument whose earliest sculptural representations appear in Gandhara during the Kushan period around the first century CE. From there, Professor Schofield traced its extraordinary travels: eastward along the Silk Road to China and Japan, where it became the pipa and biwa; westward into the Middle East, where it evolved into the oud; and onward into Europe, where it emerged as the medieval lute, particularly during and after the Crusades. Across cultures, the instrument was adapted, reimagined, and absorbed into local musical worlds, becoming both familiar and transformed.

The second journey focused on bowed instruments, and especially the violin. While the violin family developed in northern Italy in the early sixteenth century, Professor Schofield challenged the assumption that it reached India only much later. Drawing on archaeological and visual evidence from seventeenth-century Kerala, she argued that violins arrived in India soon after Portuguese traders began sailing the Indian Ocean at the end of the fifteenth century. Indian musicians, she suggested, began adapting the instrument to local musical aesthetics far earlier than is usually acknowledged. Over time, the violin became not an imported curiosity but a central voice in Carnatic music—an instrument that learned to speak a South Asian language fluently.

The lecture then turned to the modern world, where these histories continue to resonate. Professor Schofield explored the use of European stringed instruments in Hindi cinema, focusing on the mandolin in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge as a symbol of love, longing, and cross-cultural encounter. She also described the sitar and the electric guitar as “cousins”: instruments that emerged from different lineages but have become thoroughly global, capable of expressing shared human emotion across continents.

In her closing reflections, Professor Schofield returned to a metaphor that resonates deeply with the mission of the South Asian Symphony Foundation. Music, she suggested, is a polyphony—a coexistence of many voices, none erased, none dominant, held together by attentive listening. Scholarship, too, is a polyphony. And so is the symphony orchestra itself. In a world increasingly defined by fracture and hardening boundaries, these musical histories remind us that connection is not an exception but the norm, and that difference need not be a prelude to division.

The Symphony Lecture series arises from the Foundation’s belief in music beyond borders—not as slogan, but as practice. By placing performance alongside reflection, and sound alongside history, the Foundation seeks to create spaces where listening becomes an ethical act. Professor Schofield’s lecture exemplified that ambition: rigorous, humane, and quietly hopeful. It invited us to hear instruments not as objects, but as witnesses—to centuries of exchange, adaptation, and shared humanity—and to consider what it might mean, in our own time, to listen just as carefully to one another.

Musically, these operas sound unmistakably European, no matter how often they are described as “Indian” or “Hindu.” Their melodies, harmonies, and structures follow Western operatic traditions, relying on tonal harmony, orchestral color, and formal aria and duet writing rather than the melodic systems, rhythmic cycles, and improvisatory practices that shape Indian classical music. What composers borrowed was not musical language so much as atmosphere: unusual scales, sinuous melodic lines, drone-like effects, or novel instrumental colors that suggested distance and mystery to Western ears. These touches created an impression of the exotic without engaging with the logic of ragas or talas, which operate according to entirely different principles. As a result, the music functions as a European fantasy of India - expressive, imaginative, and often beautiful, but fundamentally detached from the sound world of Indian musical tradition.

One of the most popular libretti to be set in the backdrop of India is Pietro Metastasio’s Alessandro nell’Indie (Alexander in India). It was set to music at least 90 times by different composers - Leonardo Vinci in 1730, Handel in 1731, Gluck in 1744, and Sachini in 1763 among several others. The plot is based on Alexander the Great’s campaign in India and his conflict with King Porus in the Battle of Hydaspes (Battle of Jhelum River), with India serving mainly as a backdrop for Enlightenment-era ideals of magnanimity and heroism. The name King Porus is found only in Greek historical documents. Research suggests that he was perhaps the king of the Purus tribe in the Punjab region. Here is the aria “Mio ben, mio tesoro” (“My beloved, my treasure”), from Pacini’s setting of the libretto.

Si j’etais roi (1852) is one of the few examples of a comic opera set in the East. It was composed by Adolph Adam, its plot loosely inspired by the Arabian Nights. Set in India, the poor fisherman, Zéphoris, idly dreams of being king, only to wake up and find the dream unexpectedly real. Surrounded by courtiers, soldiers, and palace intrigue, he is mistaken for a ruler and lifted overnight from obscurity to the throne.

In SASO’s most recent performances in Bengaluru and Chennai, the orchestra performed the aria “Au fond du temple saint” from Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles (1863). Set in Sri Lanka, the story follows two friends, Nadir and Zurga, falling in love with the veiled priestess, Leila.

One of the most famous operas set in India is Léo Delibes’ Lakmé. It is the tragic tale of a romance between a priest’s daughter (Lakmé) and a British officer. It is one of the few operas showcasing the British colonial experience in India. Philip Glass’s Satyagraha (1980), composed much later, focused on Gandhi’s early years in South Africa. Perhaps the most well-known piece of music from Lakmé is the Flower Duet. Lakmé and Mallika (her handmaid)’s voices come together in beautiful, tender melodies, the bond of their friendship shining through as their voices support and balance one another.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Sadko (1898) contains the aria “Song of India”, after which Bontà’s article is named. The text is translated as such - “The hidden gems are rich beyond measure; Unnumbered are the pearls thy ocean treasure; Oh wondrous land! Oh land of India!”. Other notable mentions include Gustav Holst’s Savitri (1908), Albert Roussel’s Padmavati (1923) and Per Nørgård’s Siddharta (1983). SASO hopes to perform more arias from these operas in upcoming performances, so keep an eye open for them!

For all their misunderstandings and cultural shortcuts, these operas endure because of the sheer beauty of their music and the emotional force of their storytelling. These melodies, harmonies, and theatrical moments continue to move audiences, even when the India they present is more imagined than real. The arias of longing, the lush orchestral colors, and the deeply human emotions give the works a lasting power. When heard with awareness and context, these operas can be appreciated both for their musical richness and as artifacts of a particular historical imagination - beautiful, flawed, and revealing all at once.

Ammani - the First Indian Dancer in Europe

Ambassador Nirupama Rao writes about Ammani the Bayadere, one of the first Indian dancers in Europe, whose performances in Europe in the nineteenth century transformed the way Indian dance traditions were perceived there. Click below to read the complete article on Ambassador Rao’s Substack, Notes from Beyond.

Notes from Beyond

Ammani the Bayadere: Bronze, Memory, and the First Indian Dancer in Europe

Ammani the Bayadere: Bronze, Memory, and the First Indian Dancer in Europe…

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9 months ago · 9 likes · Nirupama Menon Rao

Bengaluru and Chennai 2025: SASO’s Journey

Excitement was in the air as the musicians of the South Asian Symphony Orchestra’s musicians began to arrive in Bengaluru from various corners of the globe. With two concerts slated for 29th and 30th November (in Bengaluru and Chennai respectively), rehearsals commenced on the 25th of November.

SASO’s resident conductor, Alvin Arumugam, had flown in to India the week before and was meticulously preparing for rehearsals, memorising every last detail and nuance. Alvin talked about his role as the conductor, his process of preparing the score, and much more in an interview with Accord, which you can read here.

The centrepiece of the concert repertoire for Bengaluru was the monumental Symphony no. 9 by Beethoven, which is a choral symphony. The final movement includes a chorus and four soloists along with the full orchestra. The chorus comprised of The Bangalore Men and Cappella Bangalore, directed by Jonas Olsson, and the Chennai Chorale, directed by Augustine Paul.

Other pieces in the repertoire included a medley of Raj Kapoor classics (with vocalists Vivaswath Rao and Payal John) and a Carnatic Nottuswara (with Carnatic vocalist Bhargavi Venkatram), both arranged and orchestrated by Nipun Bhatnagar (read more about this here), an orchestral “Three in One” by Ilaiyaraja, and the operatic aria “Au fond du temple saint” by Georges Bizet (with soloists Amar Muchhala and Darwin Prakash).

With two days of rehearsal in their pockets, the musicians gathered together at a dinner organised at the beautiful heritage restaurant, Tandoor, for an evening of friendship, laughs and bonding. The musicians remarked what a unique experience being a part of SASO was for them - to be able to meet people from faraway places and discover how much they had in common with one another, musically and otherwise.

Intense rehearsals continued for the next three days, and before we knew it, 29th November had rolled around. The final rehearsals were held at the Prestige Centre for Performing Arts, giving everyone the opportunity to get a feel for the acoustics and the lights in ahead of time. And then… it was showtime!

Soloists Anusha Merrin, Tanisha Herbert, Amar Muchhala and Darwin Prakash, as well as the Bangalore and Chennai choirs filled the stage after the intermission for the pièce de resistance - Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. The symphony was received with thunderous applause and cheers, the audience rising in a standing ovation after the final movement. It was a truly moving performance - a hundred and twenty odd musicians together on stage, united by the thread of Beethoven’s music, singing of brotherhood among mankind!

After a fabulous performance in Bangalore, the musicians quickly packed, rested up, and readied themselves for the journey to Chennai. Upon arrival, there was a short rehearsal at the concert venue (the M.S. Subbulakshmi Arangam at the Asian College of Journalism), followed by the concert. The repertoire for the Chennai concert consisted of Mozart and Verdi arias from La Traviata, the Raj Kapoor medleys, and Augustine Paul’s arrangement of the popular number “Dingiri Dingale”, which had the audience clapping and tapping along.

With that came the end of an exhilarating, emotional, and deeply fulfilling week. Goodbyes were exchanged in quiet hallways and crowded foyers, promises to stay in touch were made, and cases were closed one last time. As the musicians returned to their respective homes, they carried with them not only the memory of a shared performance, but the rare bond formed through intense work, listening, community, and music made together.

Until the next time when SASO gathers together once more!

If you wish to support SASF’s mission, please scan the QR code in the image below to contribute. Please note that only Indian nationals can donate to the Foundation.

Written and edited by Aditi Bharatee

Since then, Alvin’s career has grown steadily on the international stage. He recently won the third edition of the Orchestra’s Conductor Competition in Romania, leading to engagements with the Oradea Philharmonic, and in 2024, he was appointed Foundation Conductor of London’s Orpheus Sinfonia. He has also collaborated with high-profile artists, including double bassist Mikyung Sung, and continues to build a varied career across Europe and Asia.

Alongside this work, Alvin is the founder and Artistic Director of the Musicians’ Initiative (MI), an orchestra he created in Singapore that has since developed into a registered charity - no small feat in Singapore’s arts landscape. Now approaching its tenth anniversary, MI has become a platform for emerging talent and inventive programming, reflecting Alvin’s commitment to building musical communities from the ground up.

In this work with SASO, Alvin now serves as its Music Director, guiding the ensemble each year as it brings together musicians from across South Asia and the diaspora.

How did your connection with the South Asian Symphony Orchestra begin, and what drew you to its mission?

Alvin: “Madam Rao was at an orchestral conference and met a Singaporean conductor, Adrian Tan, and asked if there were South Asian conductors in Asia, and my name came up. In 2019, she contacted me and told me about this project. I was a little hesitant at first, but she assured me she would give me her full backing. The mission is amazing. The orchestra is evolving and rapidly improving, and with Madam Rao’s support, it has been quite a journey.”

How are you preparing for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which carries so much weight for SASO’s mission? What are your thoughts on the music?

Alvin: “There’s a lot of studying to do! The Beethoven symphony is very long. It’s the longest symphony - one hour, 15 minutes, and every bar is complex, with a lot of details to memorise.

Beethoven is a very revolutionary figure, not just in his writing, but also in his beliefs. He lived in a time when Europe was undergoing a lot of upheaval. Centuries-old institutions were being thrown out of the door, like the monarchy, traditional ways of living, and the economic systems of the time.

We are facing huge changes and upheavals currently as well. Every other day, we hear of a disruptive technology that is changing how we look at economics, manpower, finance, and even something as simple as supply chains. Everything is changing. So Beethoven has become increasingly important in the SASO’s work because it exactly aligns with the mission - bringing together differences, looking for the common middle ground, finding a way forward. That was very much what he was concerned with, and you can hear it in the lyrics of the 9th Symphony’s fourth movement. He calls for all of brotherhood to come together and unite.

So, what the Ninth Symphony asks for is exactly what we need today. I’ve always thought that if there was a symphony that SASO identified most with, it’s the Ninth Symphony. It requires a huge orchestra, it requires a chorus, and four soloists. We are fortunate that the stars aligned this year and we’re able to perform it in Bengaluru.”

You’ve been an educator in the past. Are there similarities between teaching and conducting?

Alvin: “The experience of working in education helped me understand what professional musicians need and what makes them tick, beyond the music. You want the music to reverberate with your audience and your musicians, and for that to happen, you need to go beyond the music.

I call being a conductor ‘leading from the back.’ Instead of pulling the orchestra with you, you are helping the orchestra create bonds. It’s about creating a sense of collaboration where ownership is shared - not only between the orchestra and the conductor, but among the musicians themselves. I give them the support they need, and then together, we see where the creative process brings us.”

The classical music industry is changing, what with new technology and evolving audience behaviours. What are your thoughts on this?

Alvin: “Globally, there is a slight dip in interest in orchestral music and music in general - opera, orchestra, and even classical music. Because of the social media attention span, people just want 30 seconds on Instagram. If you ask them to attend a concert for an hour and a half, it’s not as appealing anymore. It’s not all that bleak, though - it’s just changing times. I’m sure when Beethoven was composing the symphony in the 1800s, he felt the same way. Times were changing. He needed to reassess what he could have in an orchestra. That’s why the Ninth Symphony is monumental - he put in singers, soloists, and a chorus in a secular context. So that’s evidence of him leading the curve when change was needed. In terms of where classical and orchestral music is going, we as artists need to continue to reassess the situation and continuously reinvent ourselves to cater to what our communities and our society need. Because that’s what art is about.

It’s not about telling people how the art needs to be consumed. We need to understand what they need and how we can frame what society is experiencing and undergoing, rather like a historian does. So we reflect on the past 10, 20, or 100 years to show where we have come from. Then we use current practices to show where we are now. And of course, we are always thinking forward about orchestral music or art in general.

In terms of technology, of course, there is a big discussion surrounding Artificial Intelligence. Artists who disregard AI are doing a great disservice to themselves. They have to look at AI because every industry is looking at AI. Artists, too, have to study how to utilise and make AI work in the current artistic landscape. There are many opportunities. It doesn’t need to replace composers or musicians. It can replace, for example, research. It can give you a feel of sound colours. It can open up instrumental textures and timbres by mixing instruments in a creative way that we might not have at our disposal. So AI can make things better. It doesn’t replace the artistic or the creative intent. It comes down to how we use it and how we look at it. Nothing can replace human emotions. There will be a downturn globally in every field before there is an upside. With the introduction of generative AI, every field will suffer before it learns how to ride the wave. We’ve got to keep looking forward.”

Looking ahead, what do you hope the future holds for SASO?

Alvin: “My vision runs in tandem with the Ambassador’s and Mr Rao’s vision. First and foremost, we want to see orchestral music in South Asia celebrated more often. We also want to see a repertoire of music, whether it’s Rabindranath Tagore, Raj Kapoor, or A.R. Rahman, documented in an orchestral form, so orchestras can perform what is indigenous to this area - South Asia. Not just India, but Pakistan, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia - the entire gamut of sounds and history of performing art that can be documented through the orchestral form. So that’s one of the visions. We have been doing this at each concert. We now have a collection of arrangements that people have written specifically for us, which is amazing.

I would also love to see a more structured form of higher education in India for musicians, and I would love to see SASO being part of it. We would like to see more masterclasses, where we expose and inspire young and emerging musicians to see beyond their cities and countries, and set their sights on the wider world - Asia, Western Europe, even China. I would love to see SASO involved in that process of creating an environment where more and more emerging Indian musicians - or musicians in India - get the opportunity to be exposed to what the possibilities are on how to stretch their talent.

I also hope to see a lot more performances from SASO. Currently, we meet once a year, which is amazing, but if we could do one big concert and a couple of smaller ones, that would be fabulous. One of the concerts could an education concert where we play alongside young musicians, and that would be a magnificent, transformative experience. All in all, I would love for there to be a season of SASO concerts in the coming years.”

Any closing thoughts about rehearsals and the upcoming concert?

Alvin: “I think it’s going to be a very, very nice collaborative week. There are some new players this time, so we’ll be learning to understand one another. And for those returning for the second or third time around, it is like coming back to your long-lost family or your group of friends, as if you never left. What will be incredible is watching people from all over the world, who speak different languages, finding a way to collaborate within hours of meeting each other. Everyone will be working toward a united whole. By the end of the week, we will develop an identity as an orchestra. I’m really looking forward to putting up a great performance.”

Snapshots from the Orchestra

Meet some of the performers from this weekend’s concerts!

The fourth movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony features four solo singers. Joining SASO for this concert are opera singers Anusha Merrin, Tanisha Herbert, Amar Muchhala and Darwin Prakash.

Soprano Anusha Merrin was born in Kerala and raised in Bahrain, where her musical foundations were first recognised by a kindergarten principal who encouraged her to pursue singing. She trained in Carnatic music for six years and grew up singing in church, which introduced her to Western classical traditions. Her formal studies began at KM Music Conservatory, followed by a year at Middlesex University, before she completed her master’s and postgraduate diploma at the Royal Northern College of Music in the UK, studying under Louise Winter and Elizabeth Ritchie. Now a London-based freelancer, Merrin describes her path as shaped by early mentorship, family tradition, and a love for discovering new musical spaces. Her debut in Bangalore with SASO marks an exciting chapter, bringing her back to perform in India with a full orchestra for a work she never expected to sing so soon - Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Here are Anusha’s words on performing with SASO: “It’s so exciting to be here - my first time in Bangalore - and to work with a new orchestra. Singing Beethoven 9 in India with SASO feels really special, especially because so many of us study abroad and don’t often get the chance to come back and perform at home. I’m glad it’s happening more, and I’d love to keep coming back.”

Soprano Tanisha Herbert began her vocal training at fourteen, discovering early a deep connection to classical singing. She went on to complete all her Trinity College grades, earn a licentiate in classical vocal performance, and a diploma in the principles of music teaching, alongside an MBA. After two years in the corporate world, she shifted fully into music, opening the now-thriving 13-year-old VioVoi Music Academy in Bangalore with her husband, violinist Arun Rozario (also performing with SASO), where she is known for her passionate and holistic approach to teaching. Herbert believes profoundly in the voice as an empowering instrument, integrating classical technique with neuroscience, anatomy, and modern pedagogy, including neuro-vocal training. Though education is her mainstay, performance remains close to her heart, and joining SASO for Beethoven’s Ninth allows her to merge her artistic life, her love for orchestral collaboration, and her commitment to building a serious classical music culture in Bangalore. In Tanisha’s own words: “It’s always wonderful to work with an orchestra, but what makes performing with SASO truly special is the incredible mix of cultures and perspectives coming together on one stage. There’s a larger vision at work here - something that goes beyond the music itself - and being part of that feels both meaningful and inspiring.”

Tenor Amar Muchhala began his musical journey in Bombay, first training in Hindustani classical music and singing in choirs such as the Paranjoti Academy Choir and Stop-Gaps before discovering opera during his undergraduate years in the United States. He later trained professionally at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, which set him on the path to a successful freelance career as an operatic tenor performing across Germany, France, America, and the UK. Muchhala has sung a wide range of roles and concert repertoire - including Cavaradossi with the Nottingham Philharmonic Orchestra - and first performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Mumbai. He said, “It’s truly a privilege to sing with such lovely musicians. I’ve been amazed to see a thriving musical culture here in Bangalore, and it’s refreshing to find opportunities like this within India itself. Being part of SASO and discovering this ensemble has been a wonderful experience.”

Baritone Darwin Prakash grew up in Delhi with no formal musical training beyond singing in church, school choirs, and college a cappella groups, until a life-changing encounter at the Neemrana Music Foundation set him on the path to opera. After geology studies at Delhi University, he was discovered by British vocal coach Robert Alderson, who recognised his potential, arranged funding, and brought him to the UK for intensive preparation. Prakash went on to earn a master’s degree and an Advanced Diploma in Opera from the Royal Academy of Music, later joining Staatsoper Hannover as a Young Artist and eventually a principal baritone. Now a freelance artist based in the UK, he returns to India to perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with SASO, a project he has followed with admiration and one that aligns deeply with his belief that South Asian musicians deserve their own powerful space within the global classical landscape. “I couldn’t be more excited to come back to my own country to sing. SASO is doing something fantastic by bringing South Asian musicians together - it widens the pool, nurtures artists, and gives us a space to excel on our own terms. When they called looking for a baritone, it was an immediate yes,” he said.

The woodwind section of the orchestra (flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons) brings colour, character, and expressive nuance to the orchestra, bridging melodies and textures that give the ensemble its emotional depth and distinctive sonic personality. Meet some of the members of this section: Dilshad Posnock, Bharat Chandra, Mezraq Ramli, and Anoushka Divekar.

Dilshad Posnock grew up in Mumbai, where the rare privilege of having the Bombay Chamber Orchestra nearby gave her the chance to play symphonic music from an unusually young age. Although she began on piano, she shifted to the flute at twelve - at the suggestion of the orchestra’s founder, Jini Dinshaw - and soon found herself immersed in a vibrant community of mentors and visiting musicians who helped shape her early path. Her studies eventually took her to the Royal College of Music, where she had her first full-time flute teacher, and she has since built a multifaceted career in the United States. Based in Brevard, North Carolina, she performs with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra, teaches at Brevard College, and works with the Brevard Music Center’s intensive summer program. For Dilshad, this SASO concert is particularly meaningful: not only does it bring her home to India, it’s a moment shared with her son (Max Posnock, percussion) and brother (Farhad Bilimoria, principal second violinist) - making the experience deeply personal and profoundly joyful. “SASO always feels like coming home. No matter the size of the ensemble, everyone truly wants to be here, and that energy makes the music come alive. I’ve never played with another orchestra where I feel quite as happy as I do in this one, and sharing this concert in India with my family makes it even more special.”

Bharat Chandra has spent more than twenty-five years as a clarinetist with the Sarasota Orchestra, building a career enriched by collaborations with ensembles such as the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and the Nordic Symphony in Estonia. In recent years, the South Asian Symphony Orchestra has become a particularly meaningful part of his musical life - not only for its artistic ambition but for the profound sense of purpose and connection it fosters. As a musician of Indian heritage, performing in Bangalore carries a personal resonance for him, offering a bridge to the places linked to his father’s origins in Mysore and to memories that continue to shape his identity. For Bharat, SASO has become a rare musical home - one where artistic excellence, community, and cultural belonging converge. “SASO may be the most important project I’m part of because of its mission. It’s not just the music - it’s the people coming together, the symbolism of what we share with one another. And when I play here, especially so close to where my father was from, I feel pieces of my past and present connecting in a way that can only happen through music.”

Mezraq Ramli grew up in Singapore and has built a distinguished career as an oboist and educator in the United States, currently serving as a professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. His journey with the South Asian Symphony Orchestra began in 2019, when he was invited to play principal oboe in India, an experience that has since become transformative both musically and personally. Mezraq has embraced multiple roles with SASO, not only as a performer but also as orchestra manager, helping coordinate musicians from diverse South Asian communities. For him, SASO represents a rare opportunity to play alongside fellow South Asians, forming a shared musical identity while contributing to the orchestra’s larger mission of cultural connection and artistic excellence. “Coming here and playing with SASO feels like forming an orchestra of my own people. Being part of this community, bringing musicians together from all over the world to rehearse and perform, is incredibly rewarding. Every visit leaves me musically satisfied and inspired.”

Anoushka Divekar is a first-generation Indian-American clarinetist and educator whose musical path was shaped by early exposure to both Hindustani and Western classical traditions. A dedicated performer and teacher, she has appeared with ensembles such as the South Asian Symphony Orchestra, Colorado MahlerFest Orchestra, and several regional symphonies, and recently served as Guest Artist in Residence with the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra. Anoushka thrives equally in chamber settings, performing with groups like Quintensity and the Novae Trio, and is known for her innovative pedagogical work, including Clarinet Chronicles, a method book celebrating living and historically marginalised composers. Having completed her doctorate at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, she now serves as an Assistant Professor of Music at Luther College, bringing to the role her passionate commitment to artistry, community, and socially conscious music education. On performing with SASO, she said: “What means the most to me about performing with SASO is the sense of belonging - it’s the first orchestra where I look around and see people whose backgrounds and experiences resonate with mine. Collaborating here has grown into real friendships and a community I didn’t know I was missing.”

Written and edited by Aditi Bharatee

The South Asian Symphony Foundation warmly thanks the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, in collaboration with whom this concert is being organised.

The programme will feature Mozart’s Symphony no. 40 in G minor, selected arias from well-known operas, an orchestral arrangement of one of Muthuswami Dikshitar’s Nottuswaras (commissioned for this occasion), as well as classic melodies from Raj Kapoor’s films.

SASO previously performed in Chennai in 2022, and it’s exciting to return to the city. The concert promises to be an exciting evening, with the Madras Musical Association Choir participating in the choral works as well!

The concert will take place on Sunday, November 30, 2025, at 7 PM at the M. S. Subbulakshmi Auditorium at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.

To RSVP for the concert, click on the button below and register your attendance. We look forward to seeing you there!

RSVP for Chennai concert

A Hard Rain or A Symphony? Music as a Metaphor For International Politics

by Nirupama Menon Rao

Published with the permission of ‘India’s World’, where this piece originally appeared.

Original article in India's World

When the United Nations was created in 1945, it was as though the nations of the world agreed to sit in the same hall and play from a single score. The great symphony of humanity - long interrupted by the noise of a World War - would begin anew, promising balance and coherence, guided by a charter that spoke of peace, dignity, and shared destiny.
Eighty years later, the orchestra falters. The Security Council is locked in paralysis, multilateralism feels threadbare, and trust between nations is in retreat. Instead of tuning to one another, countries often play louder and louder, each demanding to be heard above the rest. The question facing us is stark: can the orchestra rediscover its score, or are we condemned to cacophony?

Difference arranged into Coherence

An orchestra is more than a group of musicians. It is a model for society, and perhaps for the world. Every instrument is distinct and indispensable: a violin does not drown the flute, nor does a trumpet mock the oboe. Each role is vital, even if only for a fleeting moment - a triangle’s strike, a gentle harp run.
The key is not uniformity but balance. Difference is essential. Without the percussion’s grounding, the strings would drift. Without the cello’s depth, the trumpet would be shrill. Harmony is not sameness; it is difference arranged into coherence.
Why is there no chaos? Because there is a score: the shared vision. And a conductor: not a dictator, but a unifier. The conductor makes no sound herself, but guides, balances, and interprets. In politics, the score is international law and collective aspiration; leaders are not soloists but stewards.
The metaphor is not mere poetry. It is a reminder that greatness is found not in the overwhelming noise, but in listening - in playing one’s part with care, in time, in relationship.
In a healthy world order, the score is the UN Charter, human rights, and international law. Leaders should be conductors: their job is to listen, interpret, and guide. Not to silence, but to shape. We, the nations and peoples, are the musicians. Greatness lies not in dominance but in harmony, not in volume but in the art of listening.

Fellini’s Warning and Dylan’s Imagery

Federico Fellini’s 1978 film Orchestra Rehearsal captures what happens when the score is abandoned. Musicians squabble, undermine the conductor, and claim special privilege. The rehearsal collapses into anarchy, a parable of multilateralism undone by selfishness.
Bob Dylan caught a similar mood of looming collapse in his 1962 song A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall (His imagery of poisoned waters, broken tongues, and forgotten songs is the lyrical twin to Fellini’s dystopia). The “hard rain” is not just meteorological; it is moral and political, the storm that comes when humanity refuses to listen to itself. Fellini and Dylan, though artists of different mediums, converge on the same warning: the danger of noise replacing music, discord overwhelming harmony.

South Asia’s Orchestra in Revolt

Nowhere is this clearer than in South Asia. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), launched in 1985, was meant to be our regional orchestra. Yet two lead players - India and Pakistan - have led the revolt. Summits lie suspended; dialogue frozen, cooperation blocked. Smaller members - Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Afghanistan - find their voices silenced.
The result is stark: South Asia is one of the least integrated regions in the world, with intra-regional trade at the barest minimum. Where there might have been a symphony, there is mistrust and silence.
And yet, the traditional cultures of our region were not wired for conflict and indeed serve to generate a paradoxical resilience. Despite the fractious nature of relations between South Asian countries today, traditionally, we were meant to be an integer. Our traditions are syncretic, sharing common roots, enriched by debate and inquiry. The South Asian commons enshrined that resilience and that paradox, that difference, need not be discord, that we adapt, absorb and assimilate. That is the paradoxical resilience embedded in South Asia.
In my 2020 dialogue with the musician Ali Sethi, published in The Wire, he spoke of this paradox: “What I found through traditional music is this wonderful paradox: you find through these ‘traditional’ things genuinely radical, freeing, transformative, cosmopolitan, experimental worldviews.”
Tradition is not ossification. It can resist fracture, providing continuity and resilience. As Sethi recalled, “We grew up listening to qawwali and ghazal, to folk music to bhajan singers - it was all part of one musical landscape.”
And as I observed then: “You sit at a desk in an orchestra which you’re sharing with somebody else. He or she might be a stranger, but you bring your passion for music and inculcate with that passion, a sense of discipline, the art of listening.”
Indeed, the traditional cultures of our region were not wired for conflict and do carry a paradoxical resilience.

Harmony as Counterpoint

Counterpoint in music refers to the relationship of two or more simultaneous melodic lines or voices that are harmonically interdependent yet rhythmically and melodically independent. More generally, it can mean a contrasting or opposing element that complements or balances another. Melodic independence but harmonic coherence. Which is really what regional cooperation entails. Each constituent retains its distinct identity yet coheres with the others, with the resultant sum being greater than the parts.
The South Asian Symphony Orchestra (SASO) was created to embody this principle. SASO gathers musicians from across South Asia, and also from Singapore, Central Asia, and the diaspora - more than 14 nations represented in some concerts.
At our inaugural concert in Mumbai in 2019, Afghan and Kashmiri musicians joined violins and clarinets, bringing rubab and santoor into conversation with strings and winds. It was a living metaphor: memory and hope, tradition and modernity, South and Central Asia, all in dialogue, that paradoxical resilience at work.
Ali Sethi’s song Chandni Raat conveys a similar message: of shared human experience, of loneliness and community, of people coming together in harmony, overcoming loneliness and hurt through their shared humanity. Sethi once described how the song became a refuge: “people immediately treated it as a safe space, as a place to congregate, to gather, to find shelter and to do dialogue.” SASO is that space - an orchestra of reconciliation rehearsing harmony in a fractured region.

Minilateralism: Chamber Music for a Fractured Symphony

With SAARC silent, new ensembles are emerging. These forms of minilateralism are like chamber works: smaller, purpose-driven coalitions that sustain music when the symphony cannot play and act as building blocks for multilateralism.
Examples include:
- BIMSTEC, linking South Asia to Southeast Asia.
- The Quad (India, Japan, US, Australia) in the Indo-Pacific.
- The IBSA Dialogue Forum (India, Brazil, South Africa).
- BRICS, shaping alternative narratives of global leadership.
These are not substitutes for the UN. They are rehearsals - small ensembles keeping the music alive, building trust, testing harmony. If nurtured, they feed back into the universal score. Like chamber music, they cannot replace the full symphony but can sustain trust, explore innovation, and hold space until the larger orchestra finds its voice again.

Trump and Götterdämmerung

Leadership shapes whether the orchestra coheres or collapses. President Donald Trump’s disdain for NATO, withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, and embrace of transactional bilateralism evoke Wagner’s Götterdämmerung - the “Twilight of the Gods.”
In Wagner’s cycle, the old order collapses in flames; the gods themselves fall. Trump’s “America First” is like the brass section blasting at full volume, disregarding the rest. In such conditions, why should others keep time? This is Fellini’s orchestra careening toward collapse.
We are thus pushing the world order toward orchestral dystopia - revolt and cacophony. And yet, as orchestral music shows, dissonance can resolve if the players recommit to the score.

The Ashoka Symphony: Renewal After Conquest

Against this dark metaphor of collapse, there is a prospect we are yet to explore: the Ashoka Symphony - yet to be conceived and written.
After the devastation of Kalinga, Emperor Ashoka renounced conquest, embracing compassion and pluralism. His edicts spoke of dialogue, restraint, and tolerance.
If Götterdämmerung is the twilight of the gods - collapse, flames, the end of order - then the Ashoka Symphony is its opposite: renewal, compassion after violence, harmony after dissonance. It reminds us that even from destruction, a new ethic of peace can emerge.
This is where soft power enters - not as an add-on, but as the music that holds the orchestra together. Joseph Nye’s classic definition, the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, remains relevant. But today it must be rethought.
Soft power cannot be projection alone. It must be participation. Attraction now flows through culture, connectivity, and credibility. If values at home do not align with words abroad, the music rings false.
This is why cultural diplomacy matters: orchestras, residencies, exchanges. They are not ornamentation but instruments of geopolitics. A rubab with a violin, a Kashmiri santoor with a clarinet, is a rehearsal for the political symphony we week.
In a Project Syndicate piece, I argued that India must confront the turmoil in its neighbourhood with imagination and empathy. The orchestra metaphor shows why, without neighbours in tune, India cannot carry the melody alone.

Vishwaguru as Conductor

India is uniquely positioned to be both a musician and a conductor. With its civilisational depth, democratic experiment, and diasporic reach, it can play a bridging role across divides.
Regionally, cultural diplomacy - orchestras, exchanges, artist residencies, simpler visas - can nurture trust. Globally, India has shown through its G20 presidency that it can convene diverse voices.
India often speaks of its role as Vishwaguru - teacher to the world. But in the global orchestra, the Vishwaguru cannot be a soloist. It must be a conductor. The true teacher listens as much as it guides, harmonises rather than commands.
To be Vishwaguru is to ensure that the smallest instruments are heard, and that the tempo serves all, that no section overwhelms the rest. It is leadership through empathy, balance, and imagination.
The metaphors are clear. Fellini shows revolt. Dylan warns of the hard rain. Trump evokes Götterdämmerung - the twilight of the gods, the collapse of order. Ashoka offers the opposite: compassion, pluralism, renewal. Ali Sethi reminds us that tradition itself can be cosmopolitan, transformative.
India’s task is clear: conduct with humility, elevate neighbour’s voices, embody the Ashoka Symphony, and become Vishwaguru through philosophical guidance and through the art of listening.
An orchestra only exists when all contribute - in time, in tune, in relationship. That is the unfinished symphony of our world. And it is ours to conduct.

Written and edited by Aditi Bharatee

The South Asian Symphony Orchestra is all set to perform in Bangalore on Saturday, the 29th of November 2025. The concert will take place at the Prestige Centre for Performing Arts (close to the Konanakunte Cross metro station).

The orchestra will consist of South Asian musicians from across South Asia as well as the South Asian diaspora in the United States and Europe. They will be led by SASO’s resident conductor Alvin Arumugam. The orchestra will be joined by choirs from Bangalore and Chennai, amounting to about 120 musicians on stage!

The repertoire for the evening will include arrangements of a Carnatic Nottuswara (read more about them here) and timeless melodies from Raj Kapoor’s films. There will also be some choral and vocal music, with German, French, Italian and English arias. Last, but certainly not the least, the centrepiece of the concert repertoire is the powerful Symphony No. 9, by Ludwig van Beethoven.

A Note on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

Few works in all of music carry the power and humanity of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Written when the composer was completely deaf, it is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and to music’s ability to transcend boundaries. The symphony moves from moments of struggle and tension to an overwhelming celebration of joy — culminating in the famous Ode to Joy, where orchestra, soloists, and chorus unite in an exultant vision of brotherhood and hope.

For those who may be hearing an orchestra or choir for the first time, this is an ideal introduction — an experience that stirs both heart and mind. Come with open ears and let the music speak for itself; Beethoven’s Ninth reminds us that even in silence, the human voice can resound with infinite possibility.

Get Your Tickets Soon!

Tickets are available on BookMyShow, or from the button below. This is going to be a unique and enthralling experience. Don’t miss it!

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Lecture by Professor Katherine Schofield at BIC

Katherine Butler Schofield, Professor of South Asian Music and History at King’s College London, is a violinist and violist turned ardent lover of Hindustani music. In her work, she explores the vibrant worlds of Hindustani music, from Mughal courts to Bollywood, among other topics. Her acclaimed book Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India: Histories of the Ephermeral, 1748-1858 was a finalist for the 2025 Association of American Publishers Prose Award.

She will present a lecture at the Bangalore International Centre on Friday, 28th November at 6:30 PM on the topic “Strings Across the Ocean: Musical Connections Between India and Europe”.

The lecture will trace the rich musical exchanges between India and Europe through the travels of stringed instruments. From the ancient Gandharan lute that inspired the European lute, to the Italian violin embraced by Carnatic musicians, to the global journeys of the sitar and electric guitar, strings have long connected our musical worlds. Professor Schofield will show us how these exchanges shaped both traditions, from the Natyashastra to the sound of today’s film music.

Stay tuned for more updates, interviews and behind-the-scenes action from the rehearsals.

Written and edited by Aditi Bharatee

The South Asian Symphony Orchestra is all set to perform on 29th November in Bengaluru, at the Prestige Centre for Performing Arts.

The central piece in the repertoire is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor. A choral symphony, it was composed between 1822 and 1824, and was the last complete symphony composed by Beethoven. Over 120 musicians from around the globe, including choirs from Bengaluru and Chennai, will gather together in the city to rehearse and perform this monumental work.

SASO’s resident conductor, Alvin Arumugam, described the piece as “a call for the peoples of the world to unite in solidarity”. Indeed, this music mirrors the mission of the South Asian Symphony Foundation to build peace and understanding across borders through music.

In addition to Beethoven’s 9th, there will be music commemorating the centenary of cinematic legend Raj Kapoor, and an orchestral adaptation of a Carnatic “Nottuswara”. Save the date for the concert! It promises to be an evening of musical richness.

Peace Notes
Saturday, 29th November 2025
7 PM
Prestige Centre for Performing Arts, Bengaluru

Read on to learn more about the “Nottuswaras” and the fascinating history behind them.

Orchestral Music: A Bridge Between Worlds

What could Carnatic music and Celtic folk melodies possibly have in common with one another? These musical forms, geographically and musically so distant from one another, came together in a notable set of compositions of the 17th century, called the Nottuswaras. The very name (Western notes [nottu] and Carnatic swaras) is a tribute to the synergy of these seemingly disparate genres.

Muthuswami Dikshitar (1776-1835), one of the three composers in the legendary Trinity of Carnatic Music, composed the Nottuswaras, it is believed, to help his brother Baluswami Dikshitar master the playing of plain notes on the violin. What are “plain” notes?, you may ask. One of the characteristic features of Carnatic music is the use of gamakas in the melodies. These are ornaments that require the performer to glide seamlessly between notes, or move quickly between multiple notes surrounding the central pitch. Very much NOT “plain” notes. This is generally not stylistically present in Western melodies, as they require “straight” or “plain” notes, without gliding too much between notes.

So, what are these Western melodies that found themselves adapted into songs with Sanskrit lyrics? A number of them are based on Irish or Scottish folk tunes. Dikshitar spent time at Fort St. George (Chennai) and was exposed to the British bands playing orchestral music. Likely, this was the influence behind the creation of the Nottuswaras as well as the adaptation of the violin into Carnatic music. Most of these folk tunes are in the major scale, and so the Nottuswaras are composed in raga Shankarabharanam (which contains the same notes as the major scale). The Nottuswaras make for an excellent teaching tool for early learners of Carnatic music, since they use straight notes and the raga is familiar to the ear. Listen to T. M. Krishna’s rendition of “Vande Meenakshi” below, and the Celtic folk tune “Rakes of Mallow”.

Part of the South Asian Symphony Foundation’s mission has been to bring more South Asian music into the body of orchestral works. To this effect, SASF has commissioned works like Hamsafar: A Musical Journey through South Asia (Lauren Braithwaite) and Ideas of Freedom (Anand Antonius Nazareth) for previous concerts. There are some very special commissions in the works for the upcoming concert in November too! London-based composer and orchestrator Nipun Bhatnagar is orchestrating one of the songs from the Nottuswaras collection for SASO’s upcoming concert in November. In addition, he is arranging two medleys of songs from Raj Kapoor’s films - a tribute to the cinematic legend to mark his centenary.

Nipun has composed music for numerous films and documentaries, such as Bajo El Agua (dir. Eva Wikke, 2023) and Chardi Kala - An Ode to Resilience (dir. Prateek Shekhar, 2023). He also works closely with music directors in the Indian film industry to create orchestral music and arrangements for films. He has collaborated with A. R. Rahman on several films, orchestrating music for Raayan (2024) and Maidaan (2024), among others.

The Orchestra in Indian Film Music

Nipun chatted with Accord about the historical use of the orchestra in Bollywood. Film music in the 1950s and 60s made use of a lot of orchestral music. Legendary music director Naushad Ali is the one who pioneered using orchestral layers and textures in his songs. He wove Indian folk and classical melodies in with the orchestral instruments, creating a rich and distinctive sound. One of the most notable examples of his works is the music of the film Mughal-e-Azam (1960). Below is one of Nipun’s personal favourite songs from Mughal-e-Azam - “Bekas pe Karam Kijiye”. In it, you can hear the orchestral strings effortlessly flowing alongside the tabla and sitar.

On his process of orchestrating music, Nipun said that it is much like translating between languages. A significant portion of orchestral music used in Indian films is recorded in Europe or the United States (Budapest in Hungary being one of the choice locations). It is vital to be able to convey the nuances of Indian music to the recording artists, somehow. So he often has to figure out how to notate the intricacies of, for example, a Carnatic gamaka or a Hindustani meend in a way that would allow a musician in Budapest to perform the desired effect on their instrument. “I write down the music for them in sheet music, and the intention is to produce the same-sounding music. I’m communicating with a person I’ve never met, through the sheet music, and that’s basically translation”.

The Nottuswaras, on the other hand, lend themselves to orchestration quite intuitively. Perhaps because they derive from Western folk melodies and ornamentations are minimal, the music fits in well with the abilities of the instruments in the orchestra. Nipun shared how the violin adapted well to Carnatic music because it is a fretless instrument, so sliding between notes is feasible. This isn’t the case with instruments like the clarinet or the trumpet, however. The way the instrument is constructed makes it such that gamakas could be very difficult, if not impossible, to perform.

Nipun is very excited about this collaboration with the South Asian Symphony Orchestra. It is one of his long-term goals is to bring more orchestral music to India, and through these arrangements, he is doing just that. Growing up, he wasn’t exposed much to orchestral music, and it was mostly during his bachelor’s degree at Berklee College of Music, Boston, that he began to dive deeper into this multifaceted medium of music making. “It’s so great for an orchestra like SASO to exist in India because it exposes people so much more to styles of music they’re usually not listening to. It’s a great initiative”, he said.

Lives Transformed Through Music: The Origins of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music

In the previous issue of Accord, you read about the students of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM). In this issue, we dive into the journey of Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, the Founder and Director of ANIM, and what inspired him to create the Institute.

Dr. Sarmast’s father, although a professional musician himself, never imposed music on him or any of his six siblings. Dr. Sarmast was the only one among the siblings who ultimately decided to pursue music professionally. As a young boy, his musical explorations began with the trumpet, which he studied for six years, eventually joining Radio Afghanistan as a trumpet player in an ensemble. On receiving a scholarship, he travelled to the Soviet Union to study composition and musicology. It was at this time that he began to play the piano as well. Of his early music career, Dr. Sarmast said, “At the early stages of my career as a musician, I just loved to play music. I was not aware as a teenage boy or at the beginning of my university career, I still was not aware, I did not appreciate music as a powerful tool for change. For me, music was just my love and my hobby, and who I wanted to be, but it was later, as I progressed with my education, that I learned more about the ability of music and about the power of music and how music can contribute to different aspects of life in any given society and communities.”

A major source of inspiration behind the setting up of ANIM has been Dr. Sarmast’s father’s story. When he (Dr. Sarmast’s father) was a very young child, his father passed away and his mother was not in a position to provide for four children. The decision was made to send the two boys to an orphanage, where they could get educated, and earn a living. At this time, the very first music school in Afghanistan had opened, but nobody wanted to send their children to study music. There was an unfortunate stigma related to music and musicians, and so the Minister of Defence of Afghanistan went to the orphanages to recruit students for the school. Dr. Sarmast’s father was one of the children who raised their hands, wanting to learn music. There was a lot of resistance and opposition from his mother. She even personally went to meet the Minister of Defence to ensure her son was removed from the music program. The Minister consulted the boy’s teachers and was astonished to hear from them that the boy was extremely talented. They said he would one day go on to make Afghanistan proud and therefore, he should be allowed to continue his music studies. The Minister pushed back against his mother’s decision, and he was able to pursue music further. Indeed, Ustad Salim Sarmast went on to become a famous multi-instrumentalist, composer, and conductor. His name, today, is closely associated with orchestral music in Afghanistan and contemporary Afghan music.

In 1996, the Taliban had come to power and had begun to destroy musical instruments, recordings and other related materials. Dr. Sarmast felt a calling to help preserve Afghan music for the future generations through his academic work, and he took up a PhD in Ethnomusicology at the Monash University in Australia. This, combined with the knowledge of how music had transformed his father’s life, led to the idea of having a place that would not only preserve Afghan music, but also provide a space for children from disadvantaged backgrounds to turn their lives around, through music education.

Dr. Sarmast returned to Afghanistan in 2006 as a Research Fellow of the Monash University, after many years in exile. The ROAM (Revival Of Afghan Music) project was set up to take stock of the status of music education in Afghanistan, and what could be done about it. Following this, the decision was made to revive music education through a dedicated music school, serving the most disadvantaged children of Afghanistan. Some years of research, deliberation, negotiation and hard effort led to the establishment of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, which opened its doors to students in Kabul in 2010. ANIM has since then touched the lives of hundreds of students, providing them with a world-class music program and opportunities to perform, collaborate, and tour. The students have formed several ensembles, including the Afghan Youth Orchestra and the women’s orchestra, Zohra. Some students from ANIM have flown to India to perform with the South Asian Symphony Orchestra as well.

In 2021, when the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan once again, 273 members of the ANIM community were evacuated to Portugal. ANIM is now re-establishing itself with Portugal as its home base, and planning to work with disadvantaged children, refugees and displaced people, through the medium of music. You can read more about the students and their progress in the previous issue of Accord.

Written and edited by Aditi Bharatee

The Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) is a close and cherished partner of the South Asian Symphony Foundation (SASF). Musicians from ANIM have flown to India and performed in the South Asian Symphony Orchestra’s concerts since the Foundation’s inception in 2019. They have been integral members of the string, percussion, and woodwind sections of the orchestra. Several young musicians from ANIM participated in SASO’s concerts in 2019, both in Mumbai (April) and Bangalore (October), including cellist Meena Karimi, violist Rohullah Stanizkai, violinists Amanullah Noori and Ali Sina, flautist Jamshid Muradi, and percussionist Qambar Nawshad.

Afghan pianist and composer Arson Fahim was present at SASO’s Bangalore concert in 2019, and he spoke movingly of the devastation the prolonged struggles and war in Afghanistan. Born in Pakistan, he grew up not knowing much music. It was in 2012, when his family decided to return to Kabul, that he was able to start studying music and playing the piano. Do listen to his speech and composition in the video below, as he shares his absolute conviction on the ability of music to save lives and be a force for unity and good.

A trademark piece of music performed by SASO is Hamsafar: A Musical Journey Through South Asia by Lauren Braithewaite - a piece that was specially commissioned for SASO. This piece beautifully captures the diversity of South Asia, flowing through folk and popular pieces of music representing each of the countries in the region. At SASO’s premier concert in Mumbai, it was preceded by a virtuosic performance by Afghan and Kashmiri artists on folk instruments, including the rubab, santoor, and tanbur. Please enjoy Hamsafar in the video below.

In July 2021, during the COVID pandemic, Amanullah Noori participated in the online concert marking SASF’s third anniversary - ‘The Spirit of South Asia’, and in March 2023, he flew to India to perform in SASO’s concert.

In August 2021, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. With music being outlawed, 273 members of the ANIM community, including students, general education and music faculty, staff, and their families, were urgently evacuated to Portugal. Finding themselves refugees in Europe, they then began the process of rebuilding their lives in a faraway land. Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, the Founder and Director of ANIM, sat down in conversation with Accord to tell us how the students are progressing in their musical journeys.

The first year in Portugal was a difficult one. The group spent eight months at an old military hospital while the Portuguese court was deciding whether the students should be kept together or sent to foster homes all over Portugal. Dr. Sarmast and the team worked together to ensure that the students would not get split up so that they would be able to continue what they had been doing in Kabul. After eight months of uncertainty, the decision was made that the group would move together to the province of Braga, in northern Portugal. Here, the students were able to enroll in a high-quality music program and resume their studies.

In the months following the move to Braga, they worked hard to re-establish all the ensembles and orchestras of ANIM, such as the Zohra (the Afghan Women’s Orchestra) and the Afghan Youth Orchestra. By September of 2022, all the students were enrolled in music programs, irrespective of their age or level, and in October 2022, they returned to the global stage with a gala performance at the CAM - Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian in Lisbon. Since then, the orchestras have gone on to perform at sold-out concerts in some of the most prestigious festivals and concert halls across the globe - the Young Euro Classic in Germany, the Victoria Hall in Switzerland, Teatro Rossini in Italy, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Centre in the United States, among others; they are flourishing, musically. “During the last performance in Berlin Konzerthaus (Young Euro Classic Festival), I was amazed by the quality of the music and how the orchestra sounded, and each piece was, practically every single piece was received by a standing ovation. So the quality and the artistry of our students have developed behind recognition.”, reported Dr. Sarmast.

Music has played a profound role in helping these young Afghans integrate into Portuguese life and society. Not only has music helped soothe the pain of the children’s separation from their families, shielding them from the depths of despair and keeping them united and connected to Afghan culture, it has also helped build bridges with Portuguese musicians. Understanding music and knowing how to play instruments gave the ANIM students a language to reach out where words, perhaps, may have fallen short. Dr. Sarmast shared that many young Portuguese musicians are keen to join ANIM’s orchestras and travel the world when them. Music has brought together these youngsters from such different parts of the world to cooperate, listen, and learn together.

From the group of 273 ANIM members who first arrived in Portugal, some have made their way to other parts of Europe or the United States for family reunification or in search of better social security and living conditions. The group of 90 that remain in Braga continue their studies and performances through ANIM’s numerous ensembles, which include groups for Qawwali music, rubab, sitar, and flute. Hindustani music has long been a part of the curriculum at ANIM as well. Sitar maestro Pandit Abhishek Adhikary, who served as the sitar and sarod faculty member of ANIM from 2015 to 2019 in Kabul, was able to spend a year with the students in Braga last year, resuming his teaching activities with them.

From Dr. Sarmast’s observations and interactions with them, he can strongly see that students are proud of their achievements and the responsibility they carry as representatives of Afghanistan. They are keenly aware that they are not just sharing Afghan music on the global stage, but also raising awareness about what’s happening in Afghanistan. They are the voices of the millions who have been forced into silence.

ANIM was founded in 2010 in Kabul with the mission to provide co-educational training in Western classical and traditional Afghan music to children, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and help transform their lives. It worked on reviving Afghan music and promoted musical and cultural diversity in a country torn by years of civil war. It also brought change and improvement to the lives of Afghan women and girls by giving them opportunities to participate in music and the arts. Though no longer in Kabul, ANIM’s mission continues stronger than ever. ANIM, now re-established in Portugal, will reach out to refugee children, displaced people, and those from low-income families who cannot afford to have a music education, and be a tool for transforming the lives of disadvantaged members of the Portuguese and larger European communities. Through music and education, these people will better integrate into their communities and feel more connected to their new homes.

Non-Verbal Communication Across Cultures in Music and Dance (Part 2)

by Nirupama Rao

Note: Please read Part 1 of “From Baton to Mudra”, published in the previous issue of Accord, to have the appropriate context and continuity for the article below.

Both traditions (Western orchestral conducting and Indian classical dance as codified in the Natya Shastra) hinge on the embodiment and communication of emotion. A conductor does not merely beat time; they embody the character of the music. In a lyrical passage, a conductor might move with flowing, gentle gestures, their face radiating warmth, inviting the orchestra to play tenderly. In a dramatic climax, the same conductor may adopt wide, forceful gestures and an intense gaze, energizing the players to produce a thunderous sound. Though not codified like mudras, these physical cues have a powerful psychological effect on musicians, shaping the expressive quality of their playing. The conductor, in effect, becomes an emotional catalyst whose body channels the spirit of the music, transmitting affect to the performers and, through them, to the audience.

Abhinaya is an even more direct embodiment of emotion. In the Natya Shastra tradition, the performer portrays bhavas—emotional states such as love, anger, or compassion—so convincingly that the audience experiences the corresponding rasa, or aesthetic flavor. This is accomplished through a combination of facial expressions, eye movements, gestures, and bodily posture. A dancer depicting a heroine awaiting her lover may glance repeatedly into the distance, sigh with her chest and shoulders, and shape her hands into a symbolic gesture of offering or beckoning. Each element of the body contributes to a coherent emotional narrative. Unlike the conductor, whose emotional expression is a tool to elicit musical response from others, the dancer’s expression is itself the artistic end product, immediately apprehended by the spectator.

Despite their different orientations, both traditions demand authentic emotional projection. Audiences can sense when a conductor is mechanically beating time versus when they are fully invested in the music’s emotional current. Similarly, connoisseurs of Indian dance can distinguish between a dancer who simply imitates expressions and one who truly inhabits the emotional state of the character. In both cases, mastery involves internalizing technique so deeply that the performer can focus on genuine emotional communication rather than conscious mechanical execution.

The cultural and philosophical contexts of these practices reveal further contrasts. Western orchestral conducting emerged as orchestras grew larger and musical works more complex, especially in the nineteenth century. The conductor stands at the apex of a hierarchical structure, serving as both leader and interpreter of the composer’s vision. Western classical performance values fidelity to the written score, combined with the conductor’s personal interpretive insight. The philosophy is largely secular and aesthetic: the aim is to achieve beauty, emotional expression, and artistic excellence. While concerts can feel transcendent or even quasi-spiritual to participants and listeners, the tradition does not embed its practice in a formal spiritual or moral framework. The conductor functions as an intermediary between composer, performers, and audience, facilitating a collective artistic experience.

The Natya Shastra tradition, by contrast, is explicitly framed as sacred. The text itself presents the performing arts as a fifth Veda, a divine gift meant to educate and elevate humanity. Performances were historically tied to ritual and moral instruction, with the ultimate goal of producing rasa in the audience, a state of aesthetic relish that can border on spiritual insight. The performer is a medium, carrying the audience through a journey of emotion that mirrors life and points toward higher truths. Training in abhinaya thus involves not only technical skill but also inner cultivation, often framed as a form of yoga or devotional practice. The goal is not entertainment alone but a kind of aesthetic-spiritual transformation.

Despite these differences, there are resonant philosophical threads. Both traditions recognize the power of performance to transport participants beyond the ordinary. A great symphony concert can stir the soul in ways that are not entirely unlike the rasa experience described in Indian aesthetics. Both systems also emphasize discipline, tradition, and the transmission of subtle knowledge from masters to apprentices. Conductors typically apprentice under experienced mentors and study scores intensively; Indian dancers train for years under a guru, learning not only steps and gestures but also the deeper emotional and philosophical foundations of their art.

The differences, however, remain instructive. Western conducting is fundamentally a leadership role within a collaborative musical enterprise, guiding others to create sound that moves audiences. Its gestures are internal to the ensemble, technical in function, and only indirectly expressive to listeners. Indian abhinaya and mudra, on the other hand, constitute a complete expressive language directed outward, designed to narrate, to symbolize, and to evoke emotional and spiritual response. Western performance seeks artistic and emotional fulfillment; Indian classical performance seeks aesthetic and often spiritual fulfillment. One is art for art’s and audience’s sake; the other is art for the soul’s sake, with entertainment as the gateway to inner experience.

In conclusion, placing Western orchestral conducting alongside the abhinaya and mudra practices of the Natya Shastra illuminates both universal principles and culturally specific values in the performing arts. Both rely on the body as an instrument of communication, transforming gesture, timing, and emotional presence into artistic impact. Both require years of disciplined training and an ability to inhabit the art so fully that non-verbal expression becomes second nature. Yet they differ in the nature of their communication, the direction of their gestures, and their ultimate aims. The conductor’s role is to unify, guide, and inspire an ensemble to produce a coherent musical whole, while the dancer’s role is to embody characters, emotions, and symbolic narratives that lead the audience toward aesthetic or spiritual resonance. Together, these traditions demonstrate the extraordinary human capacity to communicate, to coordinate, and to move others without speaking—a reminder that in the performing arts, the most profound messages often travel from heart to heart through the language of the body.

SASO returns to the Bengaluru stage in November!

We have an exciting announcement to make! SASO will be back with its next concert on 29th November in Bangalore, and this time they will be led by SASO’s resident conductor, Alvin Arumugam.

“I am deeply excited about the upcoming SASO concert in Bangalore this November. Each performance is a celebration of the shared cultural and artistic heritage of South Asia, and I look forward to witnessing once again how music can unite us beyond borders.” - Ambassador Nirupama Rao, SASF Founder and Trustee

"The South Asian Symphony Orchestra is more than an ensemble — it is a meeting place for cultures, voices, and hearts. I look forward to the end of November, when musicians from across the globe will join hands in rehearsal and performance to celebrate our shared love of music." - Alvin Arumugam, SASO’s Resident Conductor

Stay tuned and subscribe to Accord to receive more information and updates about the concert! Please share this post with others who may be interested as well.

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Compiled and edited by Aditi Bharatee

Bengaluru city was treated to the magic of 19th-century opera’s finest pieces on 2nd and 3rd August, 2025 (at Christ University and the Bangalore International Centre). The South Asian Symphony Orchestra (SASO) gathered together in the city to rehearse and showcase these gems of Western classical music.

SASO is an orchestra like no other in the world. The musicians come from every corner of South Asia and the global South Asian diaspora - a true representation of unity and harmony in diversity. For this edition of Peace Notes, they performed together under the baton of India-born Danish conductor Maria Badstue, a powerhouse of a conductor, touted as one of the best young Danish conductors of today. For a glimpse into the world of conducting, read Maria’s interview with Accord.

The invocation - “Maithreem Bhajatha” - was beautifully rendered by Carnatic classical vocalist, Akshatha Rudrapatna. This was followed by performances of arias from three renowned operas - Georges Bizet’s Carmen, Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata, and Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette (Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera programme booklet).

The opera arias came alive with the rich and sonorous voices of soprano Cheryl Bains and tenor Alok Kumar. They enthralled the audience with their renditions of the arias. Not only did their voices display immaculate technique and virtuosity, but they captured the emotional core of each of the characters they sang, showcasing heart and depth with every note. Cheryl also performed arias from her most recent composition - The Legend of the Goddess - a tribute to the Divine Feminine. In the lead up to the concerts, Alok and Cheryl had shared their thoughts on being part of Peace Notes in the previous issue of Accord - you can read them here - The Voice of Peace Notes.

The South Asian Symphony Foundation’s mission is to promote greater cultural integration for the cause of peace in the region. In her opening address at the concert on 3rd August, SASF Founder and Trustee Ambassador Nirupama Rao highlighted how music, and especially the orchestra, acts as a marvellous medium for collaboration between diverse people. She extended her gratitude to BIC for hosting the concert and for their ongoing support of SASO and its mission through the years. Here is the transcript of her opening address:

Members of the audience, some of whom were experiencing live opera for the first time, were delighted with the performances. They sent in many kind messages of thanks, some of which have been compiled in the section “Messages from the Audience” at the end of this issue.

SASO will return with its message of peace and cross-cultural dialogue later this year in another concert, so do stay tuned for more updates! Please subscribe to Accord to receive the newsletter straight to your inbox each month.

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If you wish to support SASF’s mission, please scan the QR code in the image below. Please note that only Indian nationals may donate to the Foundation.

From Baton to Mudra: Non-Verbal Communication Across Cultures in Music and Dance (Part 1)

by Nirupama Rao

Note: The original essay has been split into two parts for publishing in Accord.

Western orchestral conducting and the abhinaya (expressive acting) and mudra (hand gestures) of the Natya Shastra represent two highly developed traditions of non-verbal communication in the performing arts. Although they originate from entirely different cultural and historical contexts—one from the concert halls of Europe and the other from the temples and courts of ancient India—they share striking parallels in how they use the body as an instrument of artistic expression. Both rely on gesture, timing, and the embodiment of emotion to convey meaning, coordinate performance, and transport audiences into aesthetic experiences. At the same time, they differ profoundly in their underlying purposes, cultural philosophies, and the directionality of their communication. By analyzing their performance techniques and philosophical foundations, one can see how human beings across civilizations have evolved sophisticated ways to speak without words, uniting performer and audience in shared artistic experience.

The first major point of comparison lies in their use of gesture as a language. In Western classical music, the conductor’s primary tool is the body, especially the arms and hands, often extended with a baton. Conducting is widely defined as the art of directing the simultaneous performance of multiple musicians through gesture alone. Standardized baton techniques form a vocabulary that is understood by trained orchestral players: a clear downward motion signals the beat, circular or sweeping motions communicate phrasing, and a sharp upward flick can cue an entry or emphasize a particular accent. Even subtle motions carry meaning. Conductors often communicate not only technical information like tempo and dynamics but also the character or mood of the passage through their physicality. Leonard Bernstein famously described the baton as a “living thing,” capable of expressing the smallest nuance of intent. In this tradition, physical motion is a silent language that allows dozens of musicians to function as a single, unified organism.

The Natya Shastra tradition, codified in India over two millennia ago, also treats gesture as language, but in a more symbolic and outwardly communicative way. Abhinaya literally means “carrying the meaning towards” the audience. Classical Indian dance and theatre use a combination of facial expressions, body postures, and especially hand gestures—mudras—to convey stories and emotions. These gestures are highly codified. The Abhinaya Darpana, a treatise that complements the Natya Shastra, enumerates dozens of single-hand (asamyuta) and double-hand (samyuta) mudras, each with multiple contextual meanings. For example, the pataka mudra, an open palm, can indicate a forest, a river, or the act of stopping, depending on the narrative. Dancers also coordinate eyes, head, and torso in a manner that reinforces the hand gesture, creating a layered and intelligible visual language. A famous Sanskrit verse encapsulates this chain of communication: “Where the hand goes, the eyes follow; where the eyes go, the mind follows; where the mind goes, expression arises; where expression arises, rasa (aesthetic emotion) is tasted.” In short, the dancer’s body is a communicative instrument, transmitting narrative and emotion directly to the spectator.

While both conducting and abhinaya rely on codified gesture, the crucial difference lies in the direction of communication and the type of meaning conveyed. A conductor’s gestures are primarily directed toward the performers, not the audience, and their meaning is mostly technical: they signal timing, cues, and musical character rather than literal stories or ideas. Audiences may enjoy watching a conductor’s expressiveness, but the gestures are not meant to narrate or symbolize. By contrast, a dancer’s mudras and abhinaya are directed outward and are explicitly symbolic or expressive. They carry semantic content—“this is a bird,” “this is a lover,” “this is grief”—and emotional cues that are meant to be read and felt by the audience. In this sense, conducting gestures are indexical, pointing to actions that produce music, whereas mudras are iconic and symbolic, embodying narrative or emotional concepts as part of the art itself.

Another key point of comparison is their role in coordinating timing and rhythm. In Western orchestral tradition, the conductor is the central timekeeper. By marking beats in visible patterns, the conductor ensures that dozens of musicians stay in synchrony. This is particularly important in large ensembles where musicians are spread out across the stage and cannot rely solely on hearing one another. The conductor provides the downbeat and anticipatory cues, allowing sections to enter together, to slow or accelerate in unison, and to negotiate complex rhythmic transitions. Musicians learn to anticipate the ictus, the precise point of the beat in the conductor’s gesture, often playing fractionally behind the visual cue to synchronize the resulting sound. In this sense, the conductor is both a metronome and a living interpreter, providing timing with expressive inflection.

Indian classical performance relies on an equally disciplined sense of timing, but it is structured around the cyclical concept of tala. In dance forms such as Bharatanatyam, the dancer keeps time with intricate footwork and ankle bells, while the ensemble of musicians adheres to the tala cycle outlined by the percussionist. A distinctive figure, the nattuvanar, often serves as a seated “conductor” for the dance. This person, frequently the dancer’s guru, plays hand cymbals to articulate the beats of the tala and recites rhythmic syllables to cue transitions. The nattuvanar thus fulfills a coordinating function similar to a conductor, although they also contribute audible rhythm as part of the performance texture. Even in Indian music without dance, rhythmic coordination is often maintained through eye contact, subtle nods, or audible cues rather than a standing conductor. The similarity lies in the need for a unifying reference to synchronize multiple performers; the difference is that Western conducting is silent and primarily visual, while Indian performance frequently integrates audible rhythmic guidance into the art itself.

Look out for Part 2 of From Baton to Mudra in the next issue of Accord!

Peace Notes in the News

Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera was featured in the Bangalore Mirror and India Narrative.

Here is the article carried in the Bangalore Mirror - SASO’s musical storytelling resonates in Bengaluru.

The feature in India Narrative - Peace Notes in Bengaluru: SASO’s Journey to Build a City’s Orchestra.

Messages from the Audience

Here is a compilation of some of the messages received from those who attended Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera.

“Congratulations, dear Nirupama. Just as expected, SASO is doing exceptionally well. It has taken flight and how! It reminds me of Abt Vogler by Browning. Truly inspired and inspiring work. So proud and happy.”
- Dr. Meenakshi Gopinath, Trustee, SASF

“In my 2 years at BIC, this was one of the most moving performances I have witnessed. Our gratitude to you both for bringing this to Bangalore and to BIC. It is our privilege to be your partner in this journey.”
- Vikram Bhat, Director of the Bangalore International Centre

“Thank you Nirupama and Sudhakar for a lovely evening. Bangalore needs such events that educate and entertain and open up vistas. It's a great effort on your part and we hope to experience more such! Meeting the artists and friends was an added welcome bonus! Thanks again.”
- Arjun and Vivek, Bangalore

“Thank you for an incredible evening! The quality of the music by this symphony transcended time and geography! Didn’t seem like we were in Bangalore! Thank you!”
- Neena Gopal

Compiled and edited by Aditi Bharatee.

Singer-Composer Cheryl Bains on her Journey in Music

Although she grew up in Singapore, opera singer Cheryl Bains’ musical journey took root in India—quite literally. “Although my discipline is a European art form,” she says, “I did not get this from outside this country. I got this from Delhi. I got this from my homeland.”

As a child, she trained in Hindustani classical vocals from the age of five. But her first true “click” moment with Western classical singing came unexpectedly. Her family had moved to Delhi in 2009, and by sheer serendipity, she auditioned for the Mozart Choir for children at the Austrian Cultural Forum.

“I had never sung Western classical music. I played it, sure—I studied piano. But I didn’t really know what I was doing,” she recalls. “But there’s something that happened in the concert where I felt I was awakened. Something really stirred that’s very ancient inside of me.”

The performance was an oratorio about the Virgin Mary’s suffering. The subject matter was heavy, but something in it moved Cheryl. She describes it as feeling “bigger than the self… I still remember exactly what that feels like.” This moment led to a deep love for opera and Western classical vocal music.

Cheryl’s path into composition was accidental. “Honestly? I only started writing music because I was doing the IB,” she laughs. “It was a higher-level requirement!” The breakthrough came during her studies at the Manhattan School of Music, where she immersed herself in Bach and Puccini, and started thinking seriously about how to translate her cultural identity into music.

Among her works is an arrangement of a bhajan by Kabir - “Ghat Ghat Mein Panchi Bolta”, for violin, cello, and piano, and the recent, most personal one - The Legend of the Goddess - a tribute to the Divine Feminine and Ma Lakshmi. It emerged during a Navratri celebration in LA, when a book by her guru, The Legend of the Goddess, caught her eye mid-chant.

“I just happened to glance to the left of my altar, and I spotted the book. And then… the first couple of notes made themselves audible to me. It was really a physical sound that was unstruck from somewhere, but I just heard it.” She describes the piece as something that wrote itself. “I was lucky to receive it. That’s all.”

As someone who straddles Hindustani and Western classical music, Cheryl is reflective about the differences—but also the deep spiritual commonalities. “Both come from sacred chant—Vedic and Gregorian. Music has always been an art form of devotion, an art form of utmost sacred sentiment. This is where they meet.”

From raga cycles to well-tempered pianos, she nerds out on everything from overtone series to microtones. But at the heart of it all is a simple knowing that audiences appreciate good music, and this is why Western music can be successful in South Asia and vice versa.

In Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera, Cheryl will be performing operatic arias from Carmen, Roméo et Juliette, and La Traviata—each demanding a different emotional shade. The characters are varied and as she puts it - “opera is all about human emotion and the human experience.” In addition, there will also be a couple of special items that are bound to enthrall the audience - intended to be a surprise, so no spoilers! She’s also excited to share new work from The Legend of the Goddess with the South Asian Symphony Orchestra (SASO). “Madame Rao is such a visionary,” she says. “For her to appreciate my work—it feels like I’ve done something a little bit right. For this subject matter to come onstage with SASO - it means the world to me.”

SASO’s mission of peacebuilding resonates deeply with her. “Culture is the great uniter,” she says. “Art is greater than people’s goals and maybe people’s views… art is really the thing that unites us all.” For Cheryl, it’s not just about music. It’s about what music can do—connect people across backgrounds, generations, and even geopolitical tensions. She refers to Ambassador Rao’s recent write-up on The Orchestra as a Model for Society, reflecting on the roles that different instruments play, and the parallels shared with our everyday lives - the roles are ever-changing and evolving, sometimes coming to the fore and sometimes providing the background, but each uniquely important. “An orchestra is a place where a good composer highlights the strengths of each instrument. You always want to show everybody off to the best of their ability - that’s what makes people happy. When people are allowed to shine in this way, there’s no happier situation. Everybody has something unique to contribute”.

An Operatic Homecoming for tenor Alok Kumar

Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera is going to be a special concert for Alok Kumar—tenor and lawyer. For Alok, who was born in Nagpur and moved to the United States at the age of three, the concert marks his first professional opera performance in India, and is a deeply meaningful homecoming through music.

Alok’s early memories of India are rooted in family visits. “The few times that I went back… I was seven, eight and 13 when I visited Bangalore; the most recent visit was at age 26.” His current visit to India comes after 23 years.

Alok began singing at age eight. “I immediately gravitated to Western classical music,” he recalls. His mother signed him up for lessons after noticing how much he sang in the car. He credits an “incredible” teacher for keeping him engaged. After high school, he attended the Peabody Conservatory, part of Johns Hopkins University. He went on to do his master’s at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. “The nurturing environment at Rice taught me to feel comfortable with exploring and risking, two factors necessary for personal and professional growth,” he says. “Those are two years that I really treasure.” He participated in a series of apprenticeships and young artist programs that exposed him to the inner workings of the opera. His time in these programs gave him an opportunity “to watch the professionals work, and to work with them, giving me a frame of reference by which to critically construct my own path; to take what worked, discard what didn't, and to add my name to the mix…”

Following further training in Austin and Boston, Alok made an unexpected decision: he stopped singing. “I want to do something else with my life,” he remembers thinking. He began teaching and coaching privately, working with several tenors and becoming deeply familiar with tenor operatic repertoire. Then came a major pivot—he applied to law school and, in the process, spearheaded an initiative, while holding a position as a criminal policy advisor to the prosecutor’s office in Boston, MA, which currently serves as a national model for specialized courts. This left a lasting impression on him, especially in the way in which it made a tangible difference in people’s lives.

He returned to auditions and singing after graduating law school in 2009. Since then, Alok has continued to balance singing and law, working in both fields in distinct ways. “It’s a constant balancing act,” he says. “But what underpins everything is a sense of being able to make a difference…”

This will be Alok’s first time performing in India as a professional. He will perform arias from Carmen, La Traviata, and Roméo et Juliette, as well as a duet. Don José from Carmen, he says, is a role he has performed the most in his career: “It’s the one that’s actually taken me around the world the most.” As he interprets it, the role explores addiction and loss. In contrast, La Traviata’s Alfredo is an idealist who, in the aria Alok will sing, believes everything is perfect. “It’s a snapshot,” Alok says. “He lays out why he’s basking in his happiness.” But the rest of the opera reveals a different trajectory. From Roméo et Juliette, he will perform the balcony aria, in a role he’s never sung before. “When Maria asked what arias I wanted to do, I included it as something I’ve always wanted to perform but never, as of yet, had the opportunity. I considered how singing this aria for the first time, while in Bangalore, would create a unique experiential memory and would be something of a gift to myself.”

Maria Badstue, who conducts this concert, first worked with Alok in Portland in 2023 on the opera Thumbprint, composed by Kamala Sankaram. “We immediately got along and got along really well,” Alok recalls. “She’s a fantastic musician. She loves to talk about music and get deep and specific about it. She breathes and phrases with you. Conductors that do that… they’re few and far between. And they’re absolute joys to work with.”

The collaboration has continued through SASF’s work. Along with pianist Soundarie David Rodrigo, Alok and Maria are also co-leading a workshop at Sabha Blr, focused on performance, interpretation, and collaborative musicianship. “This is the crux of the presentation that we’re doing,” Alok says. “The takeaway is: how does one work in teams? How do you collaborate? Who’s really leading, who’s following?”

On SASF’s peace-building mission through music, Alok sees it as both important and timely, especially in an increasingly troubled world marked by inward-turning tribalism. He believes that while music itself doesn’t create peace, the people who make music together—with intention—can foster collaboration, consensus, and a sense of shared humanity. “If every time we make music together, we walk away changed and feeling better about the world, that’s a result worth chasing,” he says. For Alok, it’s about more than just performance—it’s about purpose. He draws parallels to the way commerce creates interdependence, suggesting that music can similarly create emotional and cultural wealth. “That’s peace,” he says, “and that’s our responsibility as artists.”

A word of thanks to our Sponsors

Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera has been made possible through the generosity of our valued sponsors, with Adani Power Limited as our principal supporter. We are deeply grateful for their commitment to the arts and to the South Asian Symphony Foundation’s mission of peace-building through music.

We extend our heartfelt thanks as well to the Bajaj Group Charitable Trusts and the Serum Institute of India—champions of cultural dialogue and harmony—for their generous support.

A special note of appreciation goes to Pheroza Godrej, Prashanth Prakash, Vinita Bali, and Prateeti Ballal for their invaluable encouragement and contributions.

Written by Aditi Bharatee

Q: Tell us about your journey as a musician—how you got started in music and what eventually drew you to conducting?
Maria: I played in the Scout organization in Denmark. I played the trumpet, and I played with them for about 12 years or so. I finished my master’s degree on the trumpet in 2009 from the Danish National Academy. While I was playing the trumpet, I was conducting amateur orchestras on the side, quite a lot actually. I had it sort of inside myself for some years while I was professionalizing my musical skills - the trumpet and my overall musical knowledge, history and ear training and getting better at everything. And then at some point I decided, okay, I want to be more serious about conducting. I met Jorma Panula - the very famous Finnish conducting teacher. He took me under his wing, trusted me, and helped me a lot. So basically, I learned conducting from Jorma through all his courses and his private tuition. I also completed my official master’s degree in conducting in Oslo applied to the music academy for a master’s degree in conducting.

Q: What was it like studying with your mentor? How did it shape you as a conductor?
Maria: Jorma Panula - he’s world famous and, I think, absolutely one of the most important now-living conducting teachers. He has taught so many conductors - you can rely on his experience. He’s super good at giving freedom to be the person you are, or getting the best out of each person. I think maybe that’s the key. So he’s not saying “you need to do this or that,” but more like trying to encourage what you have. He’s great at seeing who can become a professional conductor and encouraging their potential. He knows how to read people very quickly. He can see what they need, but he recognises that it’s not the same needs for each person. Besides all his enormous capacity on the craft he is extremely wise on the mental part too - this is very important when building leaders in music. It takes many steps towards building a conductor, and each time I met Jorma he gave two, three pieces of advice for things to fix, and then build from there the next time. This is important as there is so much to learn and you can easily get overwhelmed. He is extremely good at building conductors. I felt that if he could trust in me and my capacities, and what I am, maybe I could also trust myself. It helps to have someone believe in you, especially someone who is a big figure. You need that sort of support in this profession.

Q: Most audiences only see the conductor during the performance, but not the immense preparation that goes into that role. Could you tell us more about what conducting involves, and what about it appeals to you?
Maria: The conductor has a big preparation to do, because we are involved in all the repertoire and all the parts. The singers sing their own parts and the musicians play their own parts. They don't have to know the whole score… I do. There’s no break for the conductor. The musicians and singers may be a little more in and out, with breaks in some pieces or pauses here and there, but the conductor has to be present all the time, which is, of course, demanding.
For example, in the upcoming SASO concert, some of the arias are in French and others are in Italian. When that's not your native tongue—as in my case— this is challenging. I have to understand it. I have to understand: where is this aria taking place in the opera? Why are they singing what they're singing? I'm not the director, but I need to know about it—or have an opinion about it—if I’m asked. Besides that, of course, there's the music: knowing why or who's playing when, and cues, and all the practical stuff of the music. So it takes a long time to prepare a score. You can’t start too early in the preparation of the scores.
What appeals to me in this role is the music itself — that you get to be involved with all the parts and the overall thing. And then, of course, I think it's interesting how the gestures can affect the overall performance. It means a lot in conducting. Some of this is technique, but a lot of it is also your pure presence or personality. Your whole person is at play when you are a conductor. Who you are, your body language, your mental state, and how you want to lead - all of these are very important. Of course, you’re also a musician among musicians, and it’s a very big collaboration. But at the end of the day, it’s a leadership position, and you have to be comfortable in that role.

Q: Is it different to conduct an opera as opposed to a symphony orchestra?
Maria: Yes, it’s quite different, because with the singers, to support them, you need to be very careful with the balance, all the time. You're accompanying them, and they are one of the ones who are getting showcased. It's a more of a supporting role, and yet still a collaboration. And it’s not only supporting—it’s chamber music also. Sometimes the singers have important things, sometimes the orchestra has important things. It’s a different sort of collaboration. With symphonic repertoire, the soloists are seated with the music in front of them, but in opera, the singers are running around and doing everything by heart. I have the deepest respect for opera singers because it’s so challenging what they are doing. Drama, singing, acting - and everything by heart. It’s super exposed to be a singer. They’re standing there along on stage with only a voice. When I’m working with singers, my role is to help them so they can do their best. The same goes for the orchestra. I hope to make them do their best. If I make them do their best, I have done my best. I’m doing my best, and we—all of us—do our best.

Q: You’ve been working in India since 2017 and helped initiate the INDK collaboration. Could you tell us more about that work and what motivates you to foster these cross-cultural exchanges?
Maria: The INDK collaboration started in 2017. I was conducting an opera with the Symphony Orchestra of India, and when I returned to Denmark, I gave a speech at the Danish Cultural Institute in Copenhagen. I was approached by a company that wanted to strengthen the ties between the countries (Denmark and India). We then planned to bring 20 Danish musicians to India from the Danish Radio and the Royal Danish Opera to play alongside the orchestra there, but it was canceled because of COVID-19. Since then, we’ve regrouped… and in the 2023/2024 I managed, together with the Symphony Orchestra of India, to have two concert projects, where I brought a soloist and I brought Danish chamber players, which is a professional ensemble from Denmark I’ve worked with here. This June (2025), we did it again with 20 musicians, students from the academies in Copenhagen, the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and the Danish National Academy alongside a piano soloist and a full brass ensemble! India has such an enormous potential in Western classical music! My hope is to continue building these bridges, because it makes so much sense for me to connect sort of these backgrounds - where I have sort of my roots, with the music. And if I can help do this in India, it’s a big, big personal and professional joy.

Q: What are you looking forward to in the upcoming performances with SASO?
Maria: I’m looking forward to meeting the orchestra and working with the soloists as well. I know Alok. I worked with him at Portland Opera in 2023, and he’s a fantastic tenor. I don’t know Cheryl Bains yet, so I’m excited to work with her.
I’m very happy about these upcoming concerts because it’s a really nice repertoire! It’s a very good program for this occasion, and it’s a little bit more than one-hour performance. I think it would be a very good place for people who are not used to music, who are not familiar with Western classical music. This would be a perfect event to get a glimpse of what opera is and what Western classical music is.
We also have the workshop on the fourth (of August), which is going to be an experiment with me, Alok and a pianist (Soundarie David Rodrigo), about what happens with Alok just sings with the pianist, and what happens if I’m involved - if I lead him or lot, or if I follow him a lot, what happens if we sing with the audience? Alok’s voice will be the loudest in the room so everybody would follow him, but what if he doesn’t lead? What if it’s a group in the audience that leads? The leadership is walking around the room. We’ll also talk about and explain what happens if Alok pushes, what happens if the pianist is more involved, and what that does to the overall performance. I think that is all really interesting.

Q: How did your collaboration with the South Asian Symphony Foundation come about? How would you like it to develop in the future?
Maria: My collaboration with the SASO was through the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship. I was at the Ravinia Festival in the US last year and I met Neeta Helms who runs a big management in New York called Classical Movements. She put me in touch with Nirupama (Ambassador Rao), who then contacted me and she asked if I wanted to conduct this project. I think it's only a financial question for SASO to have a full season, so I really hope that the orchestra will develop so we can bring much more of Western classical music in this part of the country. I'm also very excited that the concerts are sold out! It just shows that it's really needed and important, so I'm very excited about the collaboration with the orchestra and I look forward to the concerts. It's a good group and it's a wonderful mission, obviously, and I know it's a relatively young orchestra and they don't have that many projects per year, but I really hope for them and for everyone in India that it will continue to flourish and have many more projects, because it has a super big potential, not only because it's a good group of musicians. It's going really well and we have good singers and the musicians know opera.

Q: SASF’s mission goes beyond music—it’s about building peace and fostering bonds among young musicians from across the region. What are your thoughts on music as a medium for peace-building and connection?
Maria: Yes, music does that automatically. It’s a beautiful mission - to bring people together, also at a relatively young age, because you never know what that could lead to. You never know who meets whom and what connections get created - it’s very important that people meet each other. The more people you can get involved, the more people will get to know each other, and the more things will happen. This platform (the South Asian Symphony Foundation) leads to the creation of networks where something can really grow.

A word of thanks to our Sponsors

Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera has been made possible through the generosity of our valued sponsors, with Adani Power Limited as our principal supporter. We are deeply grateful for their commitment to the arts and to the South Asian Symphony Foundation’s mission of peace-building through music.

We extend our heartfelt thanks as well to the Bajaj Group Charitable Trusts and the Serum Institute of India—champions of cultural dialogue and harmony—for their generous support.

A special note of appreciation goes to Pheroza Godrej, Prashanth Prakash, Vinita Bali, and Prateeti Ballal for their invaluable encouragement and contributions.

Written by Aditi Bharatee

The Italian Renaissance of the 16th century was a period of revival for the music, dance, drama, and art of classical antiquity. Greek dramas were the talk of the town, and scholars believed that these dramas were to be chanted or sung. Opera was an art form that combined music, poetry, and drama, retelling ancient Greek stories in a new (at the time) way.

Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607) is considered one of the earliest operatic masterpieces. The rich orchestration, emotionally expressive songs, and the depth and complexity of the characters set the tone for opera to evolve into an art form that captures the imagination and emotion of audiences, reaching into the deepest layers of the human soul.

What started in Italy soon spread to other regions in Europe. Jean-Baptiste Lully’s works in France (such as Armide in 1686) became a symbol of French royalty and grandeur under the “Sun King” Louis XIV’s rule. In England, the short and intense opera Dido and Aeneas (1689), composed by Henry Purcell, portrayed Dido’s grief through song and music, with a descending bass line reminiscent of a heartwrenching lament.

But lest you think that opera was always a serious and tragic affair, the genre of opera buffa started to gain prominence during the 18th century. Where older plots featured gods and heroes, these told stories of ordinary people - maidservants, bumbling nobles, merchants, and more. The plotlines involved comical romantic mixups, mistaken identities, and social satire. Some examples of opera buffa are Pergolesi’s La serva padrona (1733) and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (1786). These were popular and funny, and yet, deeply human, sharp, and witty.

The Romantic era (generally considered the period from 1820 - 1900) brought themes like intense drama, individual expression, exoticism, and national identity to the forefront in its operas. The arias for SASO’s upcoming concert are selected from this very era. Read on to find out more about these arias and the characters behind them!

What To Expect at ‘Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera’

Conductor Maria Badstue, soprano Chery Bains, tenor Alok Kumar, and the musicians of the South Asian Symphony Orchestra are getting ready to bring you an evening of gorgeous music, intensity, drama, and emotion. On the 2nd of August, at the auditorium of Christ University, Bangalore, these musicians will come together to present ‘Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera’.

The musicians will perform selected arias from the operas Carmen (Georges Bizet, 1875), La Traviata (Giuseppe Verdi, 1853), and Roméo et Juliette (Charles Gounod, 1867). Here’s a little primer on each of them to help you get to know the storyline and characters.

Carmen

The story takes place in 19th-century Seville, Spain (though the opera is in French, since Bizet was a French composer). Carmen, a fierce and seductive young gypsy woman, works at the cigarette factory, charms army officer Don José even though he is already engaged to the sweet and (total opposite of Carmen) innocent Micaëla. Carmen’s frequently shifting affections and refusal to live by anyone’s rules (save her own) cause Don José to get into trouble several times - he goes to prison for her, and he even abandons his position in the army. Don José’s jealousy and fury continue to build, and he ultimately ends up stabbing Carmen - a tragic ending to an emotionally heavy drama.

La Traviata

This is the tragic story of Violetta Valéry, a glamorous Parisian courtesan who falls in love with Alfredo Germont, a young nobleman. They leave high society to live a quiet life together, but their happiness is short-lived. Alfredo’s father, Giorgio Germont, urges Violetta to leave Alfredo to preserve his family's honor. Heartbroken, she sacrifices her love and departs without explanation. Alfredo, unaware of the reason, publicly humiliates her. When he finally learns the truth, he rushes to her side, but it is too late. Gravely ill with tuberculosis, Violetta dies in his arms. The text is in Italian, set to some of Verdi’s most beautiful and emotional music.

Roméo et Juliette

As in Shakespeare’s classic, Roméo and Juliette come from two feuding families (the Montagues and Capulets) in Verona, Italy. That doesn’t stop them from falling head over heels for each other at a masquerade ball. Their love is instant, intense, and doomed from the start. They secretly marry, and things spiral quickly—duels, misunderstandings, and a whole lot of heartbreak. One of the biggest differences between the opera and Shakespeare’s version is in the final scene: Juliette wakes up briefly before Roméo dies, and they sing a heartbreaking duet as she dies beside him. The text of the opera is in French and leans heavily into the romance, with less politics and more passion.

A Word on SASF’s Sponsors

Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera has been put together with the generous support and contribution of SASF’s sponsors - Adani Power Limited, Bajaj Group Charitable Trusts, and the Serum Institute of India. Special thanks to Pheroza Godrej, Prashanth Prakash, Vinita Bali, and Prateeti Ballal as well. SASF expresses heartfelt gratitude to the sponsors for their support.

Details of all the Events

Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera

2nd August, 2025 | 5 PM | Christ University Auditorium, Bangalore

Maria Badstue, conductor
Cheryl Bains, soprano
Alok Kumar, tenor

Register here.

Peace Notes: An Evening at the Opera

3rd August, 2025 | 6:30 PM | Bangalore International Centre

Maria Badstue, conductor
Cheryl Bains, soprano
Alok Kumar, tenor

RSVPs open on Sunday, 27th July.

Lead and Collaborate: A workshop on Musical Leadership and Listening

4th August, 2025 | 7 PM | Sabha Blr (262, Kamaraj Rd, Shivaji Nagar, Bengaluru)

Maria Badstue, conductor
Alok Kumar, tenor
Soundarie David Rodrigo, piano

Register here.

Coming up in the next issue -

Get to know the artists bringing the opera magic to life. The next issue will feature Conductor Maria Badstue, soprano Cheryl Bains, and tenor Alok Kumar.

Written by Aditi Bharatee

In this issue, we have a letter from SASF Founder and Trustee Nirupama Rao, followed by details of SASO’s upcoming events, and the recent documentary filmed about SASO.

The South Asian Symphony Foundation (SASF) has been steadily working on putting together a series of events for this year. Take a look at the details below and don’t forget to confirm your attendance by filling out the registration forms!

SASF would like to acknowledge and thank Adani Power Limited, Bajaj Group Charitable Trusts and the Serum Institute of India for their support toward these events.

From the Founder’s Desk

Dear all, I’m often asked why I created an Orchestra and what is the underlying purpose of it all. Here’s my two cents!

The Orchestra as a Model for Society

There is something profoundly symbolic about an orchestra. It is more than a group of musicians gathered to perform a piece of music; it is a living metaphor for what society could be — and perhaps what it must be, if we are to thrive together.

In an orchestra, every individual has a role, but no role exists in isolation. The violinist does not dominate the flutist; the percussionist does not drown the clarinet. Each part matters, whether it plays the melody or the harmony, whether it is heard boldly or barely at all. Some instruments sound only once in a piece — a triangle chime, a soft oboe line — yet their absence would leave the whole work feeling incomplete.

This is a powerful image for how we might view our places in society. In the orchestra, difference is not just tolerated — it is essential. The rich resonance of a cello would lose its magic without the brightness of the trumpet, the elegance of the harp, or the grounding heartbeat of the bass drum. Harmony does not mean sameness; it means finding the beauty in difference and placing it in a structure where it can contribute fully.

And yet, despite this dazzling complexity, there is no chaos. Why? Because there is a score — a shared vision, a direction that all agree to follow. And there is a conductor, a unifier: someone whose job is to listen, interpret, and guide. Not to silence, but to shape. The conductor does not make a sound themselves, yet their presence brings cohesion and energy to the group.

In a healthy society, our laws, values, and collective goals act as the score. Our leaders are conductors — not soloists but stewards of balance. And we, the people, are the musicians: unique, essential, interdependent.

The orchestra also teaches us about humility. A soloist may shine for a moment, but even they are wrapped in the support of others. No one plays all the notes. No one can. The music only exists when all contribute — in tune, in time, and in relationship.

This metaphor becomes even more powerful in today’s world, where individualism often overshadows community, and noise threatens to replace music. The orchestra reminds us that true greatness lies not in volume, but in harmony — in listening, adapting, and playing our part with care and respect.

Let us aspire to live as an orchestra lives: honoring our differences, tuning to one another, and creating something together that none of us could ever create alone.

Nirupama Rao, July 8, 2025

Peace Notes: An Evening At the Opera

2nd August, 2025 | 5 PM | Christ University Auditorium, Bangalore

Maria Badstue, conductor
Cheryl Bains, soprano
Alok Kumar, tenor

Register here.

Experience the drama, passion, and romance of opera in a concert featuring timeless masterpieces from Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s La Traviata, and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet. The South Asian Symphony Orchestra will be led by India-born Danish conductor Maria Badstue, and joined by stellar soloists—Indian-American tenor Alok Kumar and soprano Cheryl Bains. This concert brings the emotional power of grand opera to life in Bengaluru.

Lead and Collaborate: A workshop on Musical Leadership and Listening

4th August, 2025 | 7 PM | Sabha Blr (262, Kamaraj Rd, Shivaji Nagar, Bengaluru)

Maria Badstue, conductor
Alok Kumar, tenor
Soundarie David Rodrigo, piano

Register here.

What happens in the interaction between a conductor and a singer? Who leads and who allows themselves to be led? What delicate interactions are at play? And can we use these experiences in other contexts?

Tenor Alok Kumar and conductor Maria Badstue, with pianist Soundarie David Rodrigo, run the workshop Lead & Collaborate. The participants of the workshop get a unique insight into what happens in the meeting and collaboration between a professional singer and a professional conductor. Together, we explore what it means to listen to ourselves and to each other, as we experience the shared space we create.

This promises to be an engaging and revelatory event with a high degree of audience involvement. An experience that offers an insight into collaborative dynamics, the discoveries can be carried far beyond the performance venue.

​Documentary on the South Asian Symphony Orchestra

Bangalore-based production house, Maya Films, recently produced a documentary ‘Peace Notes: The Journey of an Orchestra’, tracing the journey of the South Asian Symphony Orchestra. The film elucidates SASF’s mission to bring young people from across South Asia and the diaspora together to collaborate, cooperate, converse, and create music together. The film was shown at the Bangalore International Film Festival in 2024 and won an award at the Noida International Film Festival 2024. Please enjoy the documentary linked below.

Written by Aditi Bharatee