October 2020 ® ON Stagevolume 10 • issue 3 WE ARE PREPARING TO WELCOME YOU BACK may 2020 volume 9 • issue 10 Stage ON THE ARTS BRING HOME with the NCPA@home digital series and other cultural offerings from around the world PLUS HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE LAST SIX DIGITAL ISSUES AND MORE Chairman’s Note lanning future activities here at the NCPA is a truly fascinating study in futurology. Tall claims from Pvarious sources, predicting that they would have a vaccine within x months/years, still need verification. From absorbing advanced digital technology to perching a renowned conductor on a huge scaffolding to conduct La bohème in the open is an indicator of the lengths organisations will go to, to bring back audiences, where the real experience is difficult to replicate. However, the second-best experience of witnessing performances at home certainly needs to be pursued for the dual purpose of immediate gratification with current standards, as well as in many cases, invaluable archiving. Our head of the Digital Division, a four-time National Award winner, has written about our plans in this issue. Added inputs will surely be discussed when our council meets, fairly soon. An interesting gathering of the decision-makers heading performing arts centres and major institutions from the United States, Europe, the U.K., Australasia, etc. seemed to seriously veer towards various attempts to bring audiences back. Certainly, the sad pictures of football and tennis tournaments played sans the vital element – people – were convincing enough. So, the future effort of the NCPA also needs to concentrate in these directions. I am happy to inform you that the ON Stage will revert to its printed format from the October issue, and pay tribute to our editor Snigdha Hasan, who emerged unscathed from all these changes. Khushroo N. Suntook Chairman_s Note.indd 3 25/09/20 8:33 AM 24 NCPA Chairman Khushroo N. Suntook Editorial Director Radhakrishnan Nair Editor Snigdha Hasan Contents Consulting Editor Vipasha Aloukik Pai Editorial Co-ordinator bears testimony to the tragically Hilda Darukhanawalla 20 ephemeral career of the Polish Features violinist whose virtuosity belied Art Director his age. By Cavas Bilimoria Tanvi Shah Associate Art Director Hemali Limbachiya 06 19 novels, and video documents ON Stage: Two stellar pianists, Reflections The Performing Arts Dispatch to feature films, Xerxes F. Unvala, cognoscenti may seldom hear Assistant Art Director 42 Nandkishor Sawant ‘Cancel’ Beethoven? A series on performing arts venues General Manager – Symphony Reflections on a Pandemic under one roof, were brought By Anil Dharker from around the world. In focus Orchestra of India & Western In the May 2020 issue of ON Stage, together as part of the latest SOI Graphic Designers this month: The Bolshoi Theatre Classical Music at the NCPA, renowned names from the world season. Vastly different in their Gautami Dave recommends essential reading of Western classical and Indian musicality, they share in common Sanjana Suvarna 08 and viewing to widen your music, jazz, dance and theatre what ties together all great Advertising The Lockdown 20 understanding of and delve weighed in on what cancelled artistes. By Jehangir Batiwala Anita Maria Pancras Story Keepers of the Arts deeper into the genre. concerts, suspended travel, ([email protected]; 66223835) Despite the stillness Historically, the credit for trepidation about large gatherings, Tulsi Bavishi on its stages, much keeping the performing arts and the gift of gestation entail for 55 ([email protected]; 9833116584) has transpired at thriving in India has rested with 32 the performing arts. Going Online: A New Realm Production Manager the NCPA in the royal patronage. Times have The Immersive Worlds of From what it means to perform Mangesh Salvi last six months. The changed but even today, the arts Studio Ghibli before a camera to consuming art momentum has share a symbiotic relationship Floating castles, dust bunnies, for free, Swapnokalpa Dasgupta, Senior Digital Manager 48 shifted to the digital with connoisseur patrons who magical animals and heroic Grand Harmonies Head – Programming (Dance), Jayesh V. Salvi realm with plans afoot strive to keep culture alive dragons might belong to the The Symphony Orchestra of India’s NCPA, addressed the many to excel in it but there through their munificence. realm of the bizarre and the Spring 2020 Season featured the questions that the digital shift Produced by is nothing quite like By Reshma O. Pathare fantastical, but thanks to the heart of the classical repertoire in cultural consumption has the joy of watching a painstaking world-building in in the music of Mozart and given rise to in the June 2020 live performance. And the films of the award-winning Beethoven, the festivity of theatre issue of ON Stage. Editorial Office when the norms allow Japanese animation company, musicals, the Indian premiere of a 4th Floor, Todi Building, 24 Mathuradas Mills Compound, that, the centre will The Many Lives of Seeta they seem incredibly vivid and concerto that calls for communal Senapati Bapat Marg, be ready to welcome In a new series on artistes’ real. By Leena Desai harmony and a stellar roster of 57 Lower Parel, you back in the safest reflections on dance productions world-class musicians. From the The Learning Never Stops Mumbai - 400013 way possible – for the they have presented at the April 2020 issue of ON Stage, we From the May 2020 issue of theatres await you. NCPA, Mallika Sarabhai tells 36 bring you some memorable ON Stage: In the absence Printer By Snigdha Hasan the story of her choreography Kaleidoscope moments of the season. of classroom lessons, the Spenta Multimedia, Peninsula Spenta, that became an instrument of Your window to the latest in the SOI Music Academy shifts Mathuradas Mill Compound, N. M. Joshi Marg, Lower Parel, 15 discussion on women’s rights performing arts across India and gears and switches to online Mumbai – 400013 13 Looking Ahead and empowerment. the world. 53 teaching, bringing together Agility to Meet Challenges From showcasing great Music First musicians and students under Materials in ON Stage®cannot be In the absence of live archival treasures to presenting From the May 2020 issue of one virtual roof. reproduced in part or whole without the performances, the NCPA newly recorded programmes, 26 40 written permission of the publisher. Views management shows the way the NCPA’s digital content policy Roots of the Matter In Remembrance of and opinions expressed in this magazine by adapting to the situation is one envisioned for times Much like the country in which a Visionary are not necessarily those of the publisher. Follow us on: and moving the organisation’s beyond the pandemic and for it evolved, American roots music From the September 2020 All rights reserved. facebook.com/NCPAMumbai curatorial, educational and audiences the world over. is as dynamic and eclectic as the issue of ON Stage: On NCPA Booking Office outreach work to the digital By Sankalp Meshram multitude of cultural groups it Dr. Jamshed J. Bhabha’s @NCPAMumbai 2282 4567/6654 8135/6622 3724 platform with plans afoot for represents. By Narendra Kusnur 106th birth anniversary, @NCPAMumbai www.ncpamumbai.com opening up its offerings to personalities from the world youtube.com/user/TheNCPAMumbai1 audiences the world over. The 16 of the performing arts shared Chairman, genre heads and Josef Hassid: 30 memories of their association senior creatives shed more light The Forgotten Genius On a Literary Note with the man the NCPA owes We look forward to your feedback and suggestions. Please do drop us an on the way forward. The first half of the 20th century THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART, GIFT OF DR. NORMAN ZAWORSKI From works of non-fiction to its existence to. email at [email protected]. OPINION Reflections ‘Cancel’ Beethoven? By Anil Dharker Until the Coronavirus got its vicious von Schiller poem the composer used in spikes all over it, 2020 was meant to be the final movement of his Ninth symphony, Beethoven’s year. He was born on 17th and its melody, have become symbols December 1770 in Bonn. (In Vienna, of freedom against tyranny. Even non- where he spent most of his adult life and German speakers recognise its line ‘Alle died in 1827, they regard 16th December Menschen werden Brüder’ (All mankind as his birthday). In either case, this is will become brothers). Demonstrators in the 250th anniversary of his birth and Chile sang the piece against Pinochet’s both cities had planned year-long events, dictatorship; Chinese students broadcast it Germany as many as 300 with a budget of at Tiananmen Square; Leonard Bernstein $30 million (over `220 crore). But all is not performed it at the fall of the Berlin Wall, lost for Beethoven lovers: festivities will and it was played in Japan to denote hope now start in December and go on for 250 after the 2011 tsunami. days, so ending in September 2021. Woke critics also say that the formal Nor is all lost for those who will use etiquette of Western classical music Beethoven for their 15 minutes of fame. concerts was imposed to show superiority Vox, an American news and views website, and exclusion. As it happens, this is of has a ‘Switched on Pop’ podcast whose stars more recent origin – it was only in the late are musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter 19th century that Mahler as conductor Charlie Harding. In a recent piece titled (and to some extent, Schumann) brought ‘How Beethoven’s 5th Symphony put pointless telling them that if privileged in today’s convention of listening in the classism in classical music’ they say, white males made the rules for culture, it is silence, with applause only at the end of a ‘Wealthy white men embraced Beethoven because the whole of Western society was piece.