A place alive with the Sound of Music

“Let’s visit Vivaldi first, and then I’ll take you to Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Chopin, Schubert and the others.” If you’re wondering whether this is a dialogue from a musical sci-fi movie dealing with time-travel, I wouldn’t blame you. It could very well have been. Only, this was what Jerry Silvester Vincent, a student at the Khwaja Moinuddin (KM) Conservatory – founded by A.R Rahman – told me as he began taking me on a fulfilling three-hour-long reconnaissance of the institution.

 As it turned out, Jerry was referring to the different classrooms in the conservatory that have been named after renowned music composers! So apart from the ones above, there’s Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartok, Verdi, Mahler and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (the room for Hindustani music classes).

Jerry playing Bach in Mozart!

 The KM Music Conservatory was launched in June and currently the first batch of 43 students is doing their Foundation course. This will be followed by a three-year Bachelor’s degree in Music for those who wish to continue. “It’s standard practice in conservatories abroad to have a year-long foundation course before beginning the bachelor’s programme,” says Ms. Jyoti Baliappa Nair, Course Coordinator at the KM Conservatory. The aim of this one year is to bring all students to a more or less similar standard. “This year however, we are finding it difficult to achieve this because we were not strict in the auditions for selecting the students. The result is that there’s a huge disparity in skill levels,” she says.  

 The KM conservatory teaches Western and Hindustani music – instrumental and vocal – as well as western music technology. The latter deals with learning to compose, edit and enhance music using advances in computer technology and music-related software. As part of this, students have to do an Apple-certified course in using LogicPro – the preferred music software for most professional music composers and editors. This in a sense is the USP of the KM Conservatory where the traditional and the modern are both given importance.

 “Rahmanji’s long-term vision in setting up this conservatory is to create an Indian Symphony Orchestra, where all musicians will be Indians,” says Ms. Nair. In fact he has started working towards this by providing free violin classes to 8^th standard students of the MGR school nearby. By the time they reach the 12^th standard, these students can decide if they want to pursue music seriously and join the conservatory.

 Once here, A.R Rahman, the principal of the conservatory, selects outstanding students for specialised training while others can audition to join the symphony orchestra at the end of their course. He does not take classes as he is too busy in his studio, which in fact is on the second floor of the conservatory building. Jerry modestly reveals that he was selected for his skills on the Piano and LogicPro.

 We visit Mozart, a room that houses a Kawai, half-grand piano of Korean make. Under the name of the great composer, there’s a roster that indicates which student has reserved Mozart at a given time. In a strangely romantic way it seems like students have fixed up dates with the virtuoso composer and are scheduled for a tête-a-tête to learn things first hand! Jerry treats me by playing the 1^st movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata, Op. 13 and Bach’s Inventio-8. His fingers move effortlessly, and by the look of it, there could well have been no bones there. In the smallness of the room, the sound seemed richly magnified and melodious. “The room has mirror-walls, so that you can watch yourself play, and improve your style,” Jerry explains.

 In Schubert, I meet Robert, the piano teacher at the conservatory. He is a young man from Holland and on Jerry’s request, he plays us the harpsichord. His thin long fingers, seem to perform a complicated ballet on the keyboard, jumping here, crossing there, leaping and splitting wide and gliding across the octaves. It is an aural treat to listen to the notes that are reminiscent of church music. “The harpsichord is basically a harp that has been kept horizontal,” says Robert. “When you hit a key, the levers actually pluck a string unlike the piano where on hitting a key, a mallet strikes the tuned strings.”

Robert on the harpsichord at the KM Music Conservatory.

 

 As we visit Haydn and Chopin Jerry explains that music theory, world music appreciation (western/Indian classical, folk music, African, tribal, spiritual) and choir singing training are compulsory subjects. Apart from this, sight singing (looking at a music score and singing it) and dictation (listening to the teacher play a piece and writing it in musical notations) are other compulsory subjects that are difficult and require a well-trained ear. Imagine that! We mkae errosr taiking dwon a ditcation in Englihs!

 We go around the conservatory and watch students practicing on their violins, cellos and pianos. The place is alive with the sound of music! They all greet Jerry and having experienced his genuine sweet nature, I am not at all surprised. One girl – Varshini as I learn later – beckons him to help her and join her in Beethoven for the cello class. I thank Jerry for the guided tour complete with a demonstration telling him that he seems to be a popular boy around here. He blushes and says, “Right now, I am working hard and don’t want any distractions. Music is my first and only love!”