Mumbai: Nandan Yalgi, 55, always wanted to learn a western musical instrument from his childhood.
However, it was only in his 50s that he took the first steps towards achieving that dream.
Since then, the Mumbai-based managing director of a logistics company who began studying the violin in 2018, and has a hectic schedule takes the time out for his weekly classes.
Like Yalgi, Sudarshana Ghosh, a senior corporate banking lawyer always harboured a similar desire to learn western music. So when a colleague offered to sell her his violin, it rekindled her interest. She decided that the time had come to learn to play the instrument.
Both Yalgi and Ghosh take personal violin tuitions from Averell D’Souza, a Santa Cruz, Mumbai-based violinist who plays for the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI). D’Souza has been teaching for over 30 years, balancing his home music classes with the schedule of the SOI which frequently plays overseas.
As Yalgi puts it, “I chose the violin because it is the one instrument that replicates vocals.” Moreover, he adds, it is easy to carry around. For Ghosh, who had a “sense of rhythm” from her young days, the violin is an emotional connect for her, and that when she begins to play, “tears just naturally flow.”
D’Souza, who turns 50 in October, tutors many young boys and girls but has noticed that recently, those keen to learn are in their middle years. D’Souza comes from a musical family. While his father plays the violin, his daughter, Althea, 16, is a gifted pianist.
For senior corporate professionals like Ghosh and Yalgi, learning a challenging instrument like the violin is demanding as they have to balance out a hectic corporate life, and “take out the time” to practice. Yalgi says he has even taken his violin on a business trip to China so that he would miss practising. “In four years, he has rarely missed a class,” he says. He even considered taking exams from the London School of Music but due to a miss match in exam dates, was not able to.
Both Ghosh and Yalgi are regulars at SOI concerts as well as many other recitals including jazz and chamber orchestras.
As Ghosh says, “When I attend a concert, I am confirmed in my choice to learn the violin.” In her younger years, she says, coming from an academically-inclined Bengali family, music was seen as a hobby and not as a profession. Growing up, she was attracted to keyboards and drums, but never really focussed on learning western music. However, her father urged her not to give up her dream to learn western music, and that she should learn it one day.
In Mumbai, apart from private teachers like D’Souza, there are online and in-person tuitions available at the Furtado School of Music. Established in 2011, it provides musical training in variety of instruments inclusing the saxophone, Ukelele, piano and keyboards as well as western and Indian vocals. Also promoting western music through concerts and education is the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation, set up in 1995 in memory of violinist, Mehli Mehta, the father of Zubin Mehta, conductor emeritus of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra.
While Yalgi wants to give his music exams, and has progressed well enough to take the level 2 exams directly, Ghosh says that she hasn’t so far thought deeply about her musical aspirations but says that playing the violin ‘takes me to a world of peace and quiet, and like legal work demands concentration.”
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