- LUIS DIAS
The Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) concluded its 2026 Spring Season last month. It showcased a series of richly curated concerts led by distinguished conductors Martyn Brabbins and Carlo Rizzi. From evocative orchestral tone poems and iconic symphonies to operatic overtures and deeply expressive vocal works, the programmes spanned a wide emotional and
stylistic range.
This season inaugurated the SOI’s Beethoven Symphony Cycle with Symphony No. 1 and No. 5. Highlights included Mussorgsky’s Prelude to Khovanshchina, Holst’s celestial The Planets, Mahler’s poignant ‘Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen’ (Songs of a Wayfarer) with mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly, and Shostakovich’s intense Symphony No. 10.
Internationally acclaimed Italian tenor Davide Giusti brought his artistry and elegance to the stage with a selection of lyrical songs by Tosti, illuminating the beauty and intimacy of the Italian vocal tradition. Under Carlo Rizzi’s baton, the orchestra also explored masterworks by Dvoák, Sibelius, Rossini, Puccini, and Wagner, concluding with Beethoven’s triumphant Fifth Symphony. Together, these concerts offered a powerful journey through some of the most beloved and impactful works in the
orchestral repertoire.
This is a formidable sequence of repertoire for any orchestra, spaced just a few days apart. In season after season, year after year, the SOI continues to attract a stellar line-up of world-renowned soloists and conductors, tacit acknowledgement of the respect the orchestra has garnered in the rarefied world of classical music across the globe.
I went to the third concert of the season, featuring Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt’ (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage) and the aforementioned works by Mahler and Shostakovich under the baton of Martyn Brabbins. Dame Connolly’s choice of an Elgar work (‘Where Corals lie’ from his ‘Sea Pictures’ song cycle, a work dear to her heart, and which she has recorded several times, with the Bournemouth Symphony in 2006, BBC Symphony Orchestra in 2014 and the Philharmonia in 2022) resonated well with the concert programme, as Elgar quoted a theme from Mendelssohn’s ‘Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage in the thirteenth variation of his famous ‘Enigma Variations’, to represent one of his “friends pictured within” on a ship bound for New Zealand.
The SOI is 20 years old this year, having been founded in 2006 by NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts) Mumbai chairman Khushroo N. Suntook and internationally-renowned violin virtuoso Marat Bisengaliev, who serves as the orchestra’s
music director.
The SOI and the SOI Chamber Orchestra (which many of you will have heard perform in January 2026 at the Menezes Braganza Hall, hosted by Child’s Play India Foundation; I am still receiving compliments about that unforgettable concert) have come a long way in a very short time. It is quite staggering to behold their trajectory in that time span. Since our return to India in 2008, I have tried to go to at least one of their concerts each year, sometimes more often, to attend concerts at each of their biannual seasons.
The SOI has worked with such renowned conductors as Carlo Rizzi, Martyn Brabbins, Charles Dutoit, Yuri Simonov, Jacek Kaspszyk, Lior Shambadal, Rafael Payare, Richard Farnes, Laurent Petitgirard, Alpesh Chauhan, Duncan Ward, Karl Jenkins, Mischa Damev, Evgeny Bushkov, Alexander Lazarev, Christoph Poppen, and more. Soloists appearing with the SOI have included Maria João Pires, Augustin Dumay, Simon O’Neill, Cédric Tiberghien, Alina Ibragimova, Stephen Hough, Stephen Kovacevich, Barry Douglas, Benjamin Grosvenor, Pavel Kolesnikov, Angel Blue, Zakir Hussain, Béla Fleck, Tamás Vásáry, and Lena Neudauer, among others.
International tours have seen the SOI perform in Moscow, Muscat, and Abu Dhabi. In 2016, the SOI presented three sold-out concerts in Switzerland. Le Temps hailed “the commitment, the enthusiasm, and the discipline of this ensemble, which played with ferocious energy and appetite.” In 2019, the SOI embarked on a six-concert tour to the United Kingdom, performing to delighted audiences in prestigious venues in London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Guildford, and Edinburgh, and garnering rave reviews. In 2023, the SOI returned to the U.K. to perform nine concerts across
eight cities.
Apart from the mainstays of the symphonic repertoire, the NCPA and SOI have also presented large-scale productions, including fully-staged opera productions of ‘Tosca’, ‘Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci’, and ‘Madama Butterfly’. In 2017, the SOI premiered a highly-acclaimed, innovative new production of ‘La Bohème’, conducted by Carlo Rizzi, featuring an international star cast, which was streamed globally on OperaVision. A fully-staged production of ‘Die Fledermaus’ was presented in 2022, in collaboration with the Hungarian
State Opera.
The Orchestra’s core group of musicians is resident at the NCPA all year round and forms the SOI Chamber Orchestra. Additional players are recruited from a talented pool of professionals from around the world. The SOI Chamber Orchestra performs a regular series of concerts through the year at the NCPA and elsewhere around Mumbai and India. A monthly concert series at Prithvi Theatre in Juhu, the first regular music series there, has been running for nearly a decade. National tours have seen the SOI Chamber Orchestra perform in Bengaluru, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Dehradun, and Pune, among other cities.
The Orchestra places great emphasis on education. Many SOI musicians are also teachers, working to develop the musical potential among young people in India. Musicians of the SOI conduct workshops, masterclasses and teacher-training programmes in various cities and a traineeship programme nurtures the talent of young musicians from around the country. Chief among the Orchestra’s educational initiatives is the SOI Music Academy which brings a professional level of teaching, previously not available in India, to gifted young musicians. Several graduates of the Academy are now pursuing music further in leading conservatories around the world and can often be heard performing as part of the SOI. Together, these programmes aim to raise the standard of Western classical music performance in India and grow the number of Indian musicians in
the SOI.
I keep telling GenNext that they don’t know how fortunate they are to have such a heaven-sent opportunity. Where else in India (or elsewhere on our subcontinent for that matter) can one hear, live, to world-class standard, a Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Sibeliusor indeed a Shostakovich symphony and so much more in the orchestral and chamber repertoire? And to actually be given a chance to be part of making such exhilarating music, I can think of no greater high than that.
We at Child’s Play India Foundation have been in communication with the SOI since our inception, and we are honoured to welcome their musicians for the fourth successive year (March 2 to 6, 2026) at our premises in St. Inez, Panaji, to teach students and to help teachers with technique and so many other matters musical.
We are grateful to the NCPA and SOI for this partnership. I am confident that this partnership will grow ever stronger and will soon include assistance with other orchestral instruments, the woodwinds and brass. Such a valuable outreach on such fertile soil as Goa will certainly reap a rich harvest!
May the bond between Goa and the SOI grow ever stronger! It is in Goa’s own interest that this happens.
