Hundreds of tireless little fingers are playing the First Movement of Mozart’s Symphony 25 on the keyboard. The hall is also echoing with the melodious sounds of contrabass, violin and viola. Musician S. Satishkumar and his 75 students are gearing up to enter the India Book of Records for being the only music troupe to play Mozart Symphony on the keyboard on such a large scale. Says Satishkumar, “A mega show with all my students has been a long-cherished dream. The children and their parents were enthusiastic about the idea as well.”
Ask him why he chose Mozart and Satishkumar says, “Apart from doing something new, most of my students are familiar with western classical music as they are trained for the Trinity College (London) music exams.” Not just the symphony, the children will enthral the audience with some Carnatic compositions such as Muthuswami Dikshitar’s Vaathapi Ganapatim , Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s composition Bho Shambo , popular swarajathi Raravenu Gopapala and the varnam Ninnu Kori . There will be some film tunes as well, such as the song Ennamo Edho from Ko,Mankatha ’s theme music and Pirates of the Caribbean theme song. The children will also perform A.R. Rahman’s Jai Ho and a few other pieces.
For the last three months, these talented children have been working hard for their maiden group performance of this scale.
Six-year-old Medha Murdhanya, the youngest in the group, has been learning keyboard for one year and plays the viola on the keyboard. Ask her how she feels and she exclaims, “I am very excited about the show as it is going to be my first keyboard performance. I enjoy and love playing this instrument.”
Anirudh Srinivasan (16) who has been learning for more than ten years says, “My guru saw my deep interest in learning the instrument and started teaching me when I was just about 5 years old. He has always been very encouraging and under his training, I have appeared for six levels of Trinity College exams and hope to finish all the levels.”
The performance will be held on April 28 (6 p.m.) at Kumara Raja Muthiah Hall, Chettinad Vidyashram school campus.
