The Symphony orchestra of India

“The Symphony Orchestra of India is... an ensemble remarkable for its virtuosity” Business India. In August 2006, the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, formed The Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), the country’s first fully professional symphony orchestra, offering a series of concerts in Mumbai over the course of two seasons each year, in September and February. The orchestra has also begun to tour nationally and to take music into communities in order to enthuse new and young audiences around India.

The SOI is the result of an on-going collaboration between the NCPA Chairman, Khushroo N Suntook, and the internationally acclaimed Kazakh violinist, Marat Bisengaliev, who serves as the orchestra’s Music Director. Players are recruited from an international field, with a core of instrumentalists drawn from the West Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra. Many of the principal players are also teachers, and the orchestra places a great emphasis on developing musical potential within India.

There are a growing number of Indian players representing the finest local talent and providing a solid foundation for the future of orchestral playing in this country. The SOI expanded its search for talent to include players from Kolkata and Darjeeling, adding to their already diverse group of performers from Goa, Mumbai and Kerala, taking on a truly national spirit. The NCPA, honoring it commitment to promote the education of the arts, is providing teachers for its extremely successful Suzuki Method of violin playing. The method, which has already transformed the musical landscape of Japan and China, allows very young children to master string instrument technique. There are also plans to bring a resident woodwind quintet to the NCPA in order to develop a school of woodwind playing within the SOI.

The SOI has worked with internationally renowned soloists, including Michael Collins, Raphael Wallfisch, John Lenehan, Andrei Gavrilov and Elena Kelessidi. It has also collaborated with eminent conductors including Adrian Leaper and Alexander Annisimov. In the last seven seasons, the SOI presented great masterworks including Strauss’ Don Juan, Stravinski’s Firebell Suite and the Beethoven’s 9th Symphony showcasing the virtuosity of the Orchestra. The NCPA and the SOI have also presented large-scale productions including Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Karl Jenkins’s Adiemus: Songs of Sanctuary.