Until the birth of the Symphony Orchestra of India( SOI), India probably never had a symphonic orchestra that was the country’ s official western musical identity. Many broken or amateur chamber orchestras maybe like the Bombay Symphony Orchestra that gathered local hotel musicians or the Calcutta Symphony Orchestra, but none that were a complete professional body. The SOI based at the National Centre for the Performing Arts( NCPA), Mumbai, when founded in 2006 by Khushroo Suntook and internationally-renowned violin virtuoso Marat Bisengaliev, was received with much skepticism. Very little did anybody anticipate the generous trajectory that the orchestra underwent in just over a decade. Suntook’ s infectious passion for western classical music, his cultural roots and upbringing, the wealth of knowledge and experience he had accumulated after heading Bisleri and Lakme for Tata, and the juxtaposition of opportunities perhaps gave way to the first official symphony orchestra, a prolific milestone in the country’ s cultural history. The stellar team of visionaries with Suntook like Bisengaliev, Associate Music Director Zane Dalal, Resident Conductor Evgeny Bushkov, the management at NCPA, and an ever-loving Mumbai audience, have collectively contributed to SOI’ s enviable success.
“ I’ ve been listening to music since the time I was a toddler at home on gramophone records, with friendship, with a lot of musicians who were part of the community and we always struggled about getting a good orchestra. We used to get wonderful artists like Yehudi Menuhin, Tito Schipa, Giovanni Martinelli, and there were no orchestra to accompany them. We always wondered,“ Shouldn’ t we have an orchestra.” I was brought here after thirty years in Tata to head the NCPA. The first thing I noticed was, there were empty halls! This was a reverse problem! Most symphonies had no place to play and here we were with large halls and nobody to play!( laughs) And then of course, I heard Marat, invited him over, and we slowly started putting together content. We are still developing. I want to get at least 30-40 Indians in the orchestra so I have a certain permanence, my aim is to make it a completely Indian orchestra, at least a majority,” Suntook said with a kind smile.
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