A haven of its own
VIJAY SAI
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After a good two decades, The Bangalore School Of Music, the first of its kind to propagate Western classical music, is going to have its own premises
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A RICH PAST Some of the world's most famous musicians have rehearsed at the garage, which used to be Bangalore School of Music, before they went on stage to perform
For the last 20 years, some of the finest western classical and jazz music was heard from a small garage in Frazer town. Some of the world's most famous musicians have walked through these doors and rehearsed before getting on to the stage. The one woman who ran this space, the Bangalore School Of Music, for the last two decades and struggled hard to give it a decent premises is Aruna Sunderlal. Owing to her hard work and steadfastness, they now have a place and the first phase of construction of this two-crore project of the Bangalore School of Music (BSM) has begun. "I barely had anything when I started. It was only my passion for music and the idea that Indians are no less in mastering western classical music. I wanted to see more Zubin Mehta's emerge," says Aruna Sunderlal, the one women force behind the BSM. She is the country's best professionally trained Mezzo Soprano. With her obsession, she started teaching in her garage at home. A few friends and like-minded people supported her in her efforts at times when western classical music was considered way too English for the highly conservative societies of Bangalore. A group of 26 dedicated teachers have been training over 500 young students every year for the last two decades. In the very year the school was founded, their first festival, The East-West Encounter, was organised with almost zero funding.
Noted musicians like Veena Doraiswamy Iyengar, R.K. Srikantan and scientist and pianist Dr. Raja Ramanna performed in the first festival. For the first time it was a true celebration of the east meeting the west in the country and it looked very promising in the years to come. So far there have been ten such East-West Encounters. Artists from across the world have come and performed in this prestigious event. In the festivals of the previous years, every one from the celebrated German guitarist Roger Zimmerman, Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Ustad Zakir Hussain to L. Subramaniam and Ustad Zakir Hussain have performed. When the Swedish Embassy wanted to celebrate the centenary celebrations of the Nobel prize, they came all the way to Bangalore, and instead of the standard Delhi-centric ceremonies, they contacted the BSM.
This year the BSM celebrates its 20th birthday with the launch of their new premises. To achieve this proud moment was not a smooth walk at all. Aruna literally went around with a begging bowl asking music lovers to donate generously. Each rupee mattered a lot.
The BSM has one of the best in-house chamber orchestras in our country. The members of this orchestra have received professional training from some of the world's most prestigious institutes like the Royal college of Music in Stockholm. They have groomed to become the country's best chamber orchestra and they perform many charity concerts to create awareness among people who were new to western classical music. They did many a fund-raising concert as a voluntary service and diverted the little funds to the construction of the new school complex. Since then, the BSM has been organising at least 25 public concerts annually where reputed artists from India and overseas perform. They have developed a senior choir with 40 members and a children's choir with 50 kids that have been performing regularly. They ventured in to bring about the Indo-American arts council in Karnataka where representatives over 30 cultural organisations met with their U.S. counterparts to felicitate exchange. Their joint partnership with the prestigious Royal college of Music in Sweden and have started an out reach program where 260 children from extremely underprivileged sections of the society get training in music and dance.
The new premises for the school is nearing completion and hopes to be fully operational from this summer. The state-of-the-art building will have 24 music rooms, four mini halls, a library, recording studios, and a 200-seater auditorium. "We are also tying up with the best theatre, music and dance troupes to bring about a common cultural platform. We will open up to other cultural and literary events like book launches and poetry readings and much more," says Aruna Sunderlal with a glow in her eyes. With the opening of the new BSM, the city has yet another cultural feather in its cap to look forward to.
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