Sonia Wieder-Atherton is on a musical odyssey. The world-renowned French cellist plans to absorb all that she will observe in her altogether brief stay in Thiruvananthapuram (and the rest of the country in the coming weeks) and translate it into her brand of music. Sonia’s classical cello concert, rather aptly titled ‘L’Odyssée de l’Inde’ (The Odyssey in India), is on November 24.
Sonia’s been in the city barely 24 hours, after a day’s stopover in Delhi, when we met up with her and already she’s full of stories about her experiences. “The first and most enduring and endearing memory of India would perhaps be the open faces and cheery smiles of a bunch of girls in school uniforms I chanced upon in Delhi, near a Sikh temple that I visited. They were curious about me and what I was doing here and enveloped me in their innocence. If Delhi is vibrant, it’s a different world altogether here in Kerala, with the rhythm of the prayers, the intensity of the belief, the people... You know, if you don’t go fully immerse yourself in the places you visit, you will always be stuck forever on the sides like bystander,” says Sonia.
“Music is not very different from life. Whenever I go somewhere I like that the world enters me and I like having a relationship with what surrounds me,” adds the 56-year-old Paris-based soloist and music composer.
‘L’Odyssée, ’ is one of her “special projects,” which features her on a cello accompanied by an imaginary chorus and a soundtrack of natural elements — the wind, waves, storms, chaos… confronting them and occasionally playing notes inspired by the sights and sounds, people and culture of the place where that particular concert is being held. Hence, the addition of ‘l’Inde’ (in India) to the title of her musical odyssey in the country. “L’Odyssée is essentially the story of a person with music,” she says. ‘I don’t know much about India yet but I dream of discovering it, travelling to different cities [concerts in Pune, Udaipur, Delhi and Bengaluru are on the list] and regions, meeting people, taking time with them to share my Odyssey, recording sounds together, then incorporating this raw material into the Odyssey and its soundtrack. Each performance would thus become the home of its own Odyssey; the Odyssey for that place and those people. My wish is for the sounds, narratives, songs, all the things that I cannot yet imagine, to take their place in my odyssey and meet the voice of my cello,’ she explains in a statement about the performance.
In depth exploration
In the city, she has joined hands with Karnatriix’ lead guitarist John Antony and singer Akhil J. Chand to create a performance unique to Thiruvananthapuram. “I was playing the cello for the duo and the singer sang this beautiful raga in very low register that perfectly matched the melody that I played. And right there I found the muse for my performance in the city,” she explains, sounding rather thrilled about the “sense of time” that she has discovered in Indian classical music. “I like how classical musicians here take their time with each notes, with each phrase exploring its nuances and everything happens inside them. Indian music I have found to be akin to Marcel Proust’s concept of looking at the same scene for hours and trying to decipher its meaning,” she says.
The concert is being presented by Alliance Française de Trivandrum, in association with the Embassy of France in India as part of the Bonjour India series. It’s at 6.30pm at Vyloppilli Samskriti Bhavan. Contact: 2320666
Factfile
Sonia Wieder-Atherton studied cello at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris and at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Moscow.
She is also a composer/arranger with film credits like A Couch in New York , Venus Beauty and Conjugal Love .
