Lifestyle - A musicla bouquet

WARREN D’MELLO


British conductor Adrian Leaper, who was in Mumbai for the Symphony Orchestra of India’s concert season, talks about a life in music and the reach of Western classical music.

Coming out from a long rehearsal with the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), British conductor Adrian Leaper is vibrant. He talks about growing up with music and The Beatles in London, and of seventh century Islamic migration into Spain in the same breath, displaying an impressive assimilation of world history and culture.

Leaper has been invited as the principal guest conductor for the SOI’s Fifth Concert Season. He is well known throughout Europe, and has conducted all four of the major international London orchestras, among other renowned orchestras across Europe. He is currently the Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the RTVE Symphony Orchestra in Madrid, Spain, where he has made his home.

Early start

“I first raised a baton in front of an orchestra when I was 15,” says Leaper, “when my friend, two years older and who had quite remarkably founded the orchestra, asked me to take over. I was untutored, no education. It was typical British amateur attitude … you just get on and do it”.

Born into a musical family after the Second World War in poverty, Leaper’s earliest memories of music go back to his father’s orchestra rehearsals. At age three, Leaper would be in a cot in the first row of the hall while his father, principal at a music school north of London, would be conducting; sometimes, with his mother, an opera singer, on stage. With a violinist brother who also leads orchestras over London, it would be easy to be led into thinking that music runs in the family. But Leaper casually dismisses the idea by mentioning another brother who designs monocoque chasses for F1 cars in Renault, and jokingly says, “That proves that you don’t need to have a bloodline” to get into music. Or cars.

For those wondering, a lot of things go on in the conductor’s stand during rehearsals, too numerous and often too varied to list. “Conducting is the sound of a musician who makes no sound,” explains Leaper. “You have to have that tunnel vision of knowing where you want to go with the interpretation. At the same time, you have to listen to a 101 different things and correct them all the time. There may be basic techniques — it may be rhythm, it may be intonation, articulation. There is some amount of education for the younger musicians, but at the same time, you cannot be patronising to the professionals who have a lot of experience.”

In India

When he was called in to conduct the young SOI for the season, Leaper knew of the work ahead, but didn’t know too much about the constitution of the orchestra. He says, “I knew that it is in its formative years and it was marvellous to see how soon they adapted and could work together as a unit. I must pay tribute to Zane Dalal (Assistant Conductor of the SOI), who’s been working with them previously and had a lot of work with the purely home-grown Indian musicians.”

Leaper draws an interesting parallel in European history, when describing his experience working with the multi-cultural SOI. “A gentleman who was kicked out of Damascus in the eighth century AD (the Umayyad prince, Abd al-rahman I) following the schism between the Sunni and the Shia, went all the way across North Africa, invaded Spain and within the space of 40-50 years, created the most astonishing civilisation. For the next 300 years, Muslims, Jews, Christians lived happily, and very profitably. Toledo became the centre of learning for Europe. The Roman and Greek learning went via the Arabs into Toledo, which had one of the largest libraries in Europe. The (Arabic) numeral system used nowadays came from Spain, not from the Middle East. The cultural renaissance in Europe followed after that.” Just when you begin to wonder where he’s going with this rather informative but seemingly digressive chapter in history, Leaper summarises, “The point that I was trying to make is that those three cultures, religions were able to work very, very well together. (With) the orchestra, we have musical schisms: we have an Indian group, an English group, and a Kazakh group. The schooling is so different, yet the way they knit together …. it could have been a musical block. But not at all. It was absolutely wonderful.”

After a brief moment he adds, “Imagine you’re walking in a park, and your goal is at the far end. You’ve got all sorts of flowers around you, and you’re collecting them to make some sort of bouquet. You can get colours that may clash. But somehow you’ve got to make it seem complete and whole. By the end of that walk, that pathway through the rehearsals, you present a bouquet that seems natural and absolutely fine — that’s what I thought about the musicians.”

What’s ahead

Having now established itself, Leaper feels the work ahead for the SOI is to widen its appeal. The orchestra has to have something of some worth to offer to people which will make them come and listen. He notes, “Here in Bombay, we have this project (the SOI), which is trying to offer something that we feel will be very valuable to people.” Leaper talks about how live symphonic concerts can take the listener on a journey through the peaks and troughs of human emotion. He describes moments in the Shostakovich symphony No. 5, where “people will be taken from extraordinary heights of animation to moments of despair, moments of incredible desolation, moments of loneliness … and that shared experience of being in a hall — you can’t get this in a record — you get taken out of yourself. It’s a deeper, more profound experience than any pop music can ever be.”

Through the SOI, the National Centre of Performing Arts (NCPA) has been involved with creating music awareness and educating children in both musical traditions, Indian and Western classical, besides developing international standards of professionalism among the local musicians in the orchestra. Assistant Conductor to the SOI, Zane Dalal, has been going around schools getting children involved with music and to directly interact with SOI musicians.

Different countries or even continents have local issues and conditions, which affect and influence the way regional orchestras function and grow. Leaper feels that in India, if the SOI can expand its education and create an interest for music in children, this would be a great way to expand the audience, and perhaps, even influence a few to take up an instrument. He says, “It’s funny how children, when they like a sound, they don’t know why. I was three — what did I know about classical music to make me want to learn the French horn and not the violin or cello or bass? If a child listens to some music, as Zane keeps going around schools, and then goes ‘Oh! That appeals to me’, and when that appeals to you, you go and do it. And then if you feel compelled to carry on, you pick it as your profession. And then,” Leaper pauses, looks up and smiles as he says, “if this does succeed, I’ll say that’s great! Marvellous! Let’s go do another city.”