The 2nd Suzuki India Children’s Music Conference held from 25th April to 30th April

2016 was a spectacular week of learning and fun, and lots of hard work as well,

for 68 students (and their parents!) from Rama Chobhe’s School of Violin in Pune,

Winston Collaco’s program in Goa and for visiting students from Mumbai and

Delhi.

The first three days of the conference were held in Pune and the last three in

Lavasa. The Lavasa portion of the conference, held at the international

convention center, surrounded by beautiful hills and adjoining the lake, was a

fully immersive musical experience with day long sessions and numerous activities

for the participants, teachers and parents.

There were six parallel threads running through the conference, led by

internationally renowned teachers and faculty. The students went through these

sessions in different groups based on their level of experience.

Helen Brunner worked on various pieces of the Suzuki repertoire.

Sarah Walters prepared the students for playing in a Strings Orchestra.

Jessica Zeigler taught the students various Irish Fiddle music pieces.

There were music appreciation sessions, with Mrs Vidya Dengle performing

a concert and sharing her thoughts on Indian classical music and Dr. Kedar

Awati and Arnaud Devic holding a series of discussions and presentations

on western classical music appreciation.

Luthier Andreas Franke took the students and parents through sessions on

violin making and repair. There was an exhibition of Indian musical

instruments by Hemkant Navdikar.

The youngest students in the class, some as young as 2.5 years, went

through an early childhood musical development program with Sarah

Walters, Madhura Gogte, Arthur Fernandes and the team from Taal Inc.

And there was a special series of events where the students themselves got a

chance to demonstrate their own skills, musical and otherwise!!

Perfecting the Suzuki Repertoire

Helen Brunner wove her teaching magic while working with the students on their

Suzuki repertoire pieces. Each of her sessions, whether it was a master class

working with an individual student, or a group training session, was completely

enjoyed by the students, the parents, and even the teachers that were listening

in!

Helen’s passion for teaching and the violin and music was visible throughout the

conference. Starting from her message at the opening concert in Lavasa (Never

Give Up, Nourish with Love, and Learn to put your Ego aside), to her talk to the

parents where she touched upon what violin playing had meant to her personally,

to the closing concert in which she had every member of the audience completely

engaged in the performance, Helen was full of energy and creativity and

brilliance.

One moment of teaching brilliance involved weaving a little story and a sense of

context into a piece that the students were preparing. The group had just played

one of the Sietz compositions from Book 4. All of sudden, Helen had them sit on

the floor and started off with “Once upon a time in a land far far away…”. All of us

were wondering where this was going. And then Helen teacher broke up the song

into small sections and weaved in the Cinderella story! That’s the music of the

trumpeters announcing the Grand Ball, that’s the voice of the big bad sisters,

there’s the plaintive little notes of Cinderella……there’s the stroke of midnight and

there goes Cinderella’s shoe!!! Every one of our teenagers and parents were just

as hooked as the younger students were! You can well imagine just how gorgeous

and full of feeling the music was when the kids played it next! And how the feel of

the song will stay with them for a long time…!

We have been very fortunate to have had Helen looking out for the students in

our school and for Rama teacher as well over many years. Rama teachers

association with Helen goes back over 15 years starting from when Rama teacher

went to Colorado for her own Suzuki teachers training course. The bonds with

Helen have grown stronger over the years, and this is Helen’s third trip now to

India. Helen was part of our first Suzuki conference in Lonavla in 2008.

Our students continue to be enriched in so many ways through our contact with

Helen. A recent example of this is the opportunity for several of our students to

participate in the Suzuki Gala at the Royal Albert Hall in London, which was only

possible because of the special invitation from Helen. This was a truly spectacular

event in an amazing setting! The Gala was followed by participation in the British

Suzuki Associations 3-day workshop where our students got the opportunity to

learn from many of the top teachers from across the world.

When I asked the students what their favorite moment in the conference was, I

(expectedly) got many different answers. But there was one moment that stood

out for multiple students…..playing Bach Double with Helen teacher! Helen

devoted almost a complete session in Pune playing Bach Double (which is an

involved and long piece), not just with one student, but with each one of the 14

students in that group!!! And then again at the closing concert, Helen teacher and

Rama teacher looked like they were getting into their own duet (or was it duel )

while playing the piece!!

Sachin Ajmani helped Helen with the piano accompaniment for the Suzuki

repertoire pieces.

The Strings Orchestra

Sarah Walters spent many tireless hours preparing all the students for playing in

an orchestral setting. Even though our Suzuki students spend a lot of time playing

together, learning how to play in an orchestra where multiple musicians and

instruments complement each other was quite a learning experience. Under

Sarah’s instructions, the students learnt about subduing their own individuality

and ego, learnt to listen to each other in addition over their own playing, and

learnt all about listening to and following the conductor.

The students played multiple pieces in the final concert led by Sarah, including

The Happy Squirrel, Show Some Pluck, Bourree in D Minor, and the Western

Fiddler.

This conference was Sarah’s second visit to India. Sarah and Rama’s association

goes back to the days when Rama Chobhe and a group of her students went to

the Suzuki World Conference in Melbourne in 2009. Sarah’s interest in India and

common friends brought her to India in 2011 when she conducted her first

workshop in the Suzuki school in Pune.

Sarah also took time out from her orchestra teaching to talk to the parents about

Character First, Ability Second. In a moving session that was interspersed with a

lot of personal pictures and anecdotes, Sarah reminded the parents of all of the

character that the students were in the process of building up as part of their

violin learning. These included the ability to achieve great heights by solving and

correcting one small problem at a time, developing a strong sense of

commitment, resilience and a long term relationship, developing the ability to

learn from others, and having the courage to make mistakes, accept them and

learning from them.

Fiddle Music

Jessica Ziegler worked with the students throughout the conference and had

them literally dancing to the sounds and rhythms of Irish folk music and dances

like the Gigue and the Reel. By the time of the final concert, the students had

made some remarkable progress under Jessica’s guidance.

To give you an idea of what was involved, the Suzuki method repertoire that our

students learn is mostly music that is focused on exact notes and rhythm. A lot of

the Fiddle music that Jessica was teaching by contrast was folksy and dance-y

with a lot of subtle improvisations to give the music its character. Jessica’s way of

teaching was different and refreshing for our students and they absorbed it and

responded to it without any problem at all --- You’ve got a long note in the piece:

well, throw in a couple of intermediate notes or a triple in the middle of it! You

want to make it zingier - casually throw in some notes that are an octave lower

and get this wonderful harmonic feel!! And the students just lapped it up and

delivered! Every once in a while, you’d hear Jessica go: “Wow, I feel like I’m in

Ireland”, and that would bring a smile to the kids faces!!

Jessica also had the conference attendees enthralled with her own special

breakout session for all the students, parents and faculty where she played

various Irish fiddle pieces, and related the playing to various Irish dance forms.

The students had a great time with Jessica and we are looking forward to having

her back again!

Starting them Young

The Early Childhood Music program sessions in the conference were put together

with the goal of giving the younger participants (some as young as 2.5 years) an

early start into the Suzuki musical journey and into developing a long lasting

appreciation of classical music.

The session with Sarah Walters introduced children to music and games, musical

notes and the musical alphabet. Sarah held their attention by playing the guitar

and the violin and they participated with shakers, bean bags, drums, rattles, bells

and anything they could get their hands on!

Arthur Fernandes and the team from Taal enthralled the children and parents

alike with their percussion sessions. While the team from Taal introduced the kids

to the djembe and its beats and sounds, over the 2 days with Arthur the kids tried

a variety of percussion instruments from drums, tambourines, djembe, shakers,

music box, Tibetan gong bowl, thunder box, lejhim and many more! A complete

stress buster and a great way to pick up the adrenaline for a packed day ahead!

With Madhura Gogte the children sat down to creative craft and made their own

instruments and then jumped up and danced to some lively tunes. Madhura also

introduced the children to songs from the Grammy nominated album Beethoven’s

Wig, which puts simple and fun lyrics to the finest classical pieces. The little

toddlers put up an act on Midnight Snack based on Carmens Habanera and also

enacted the Schumann Family musical evening with Harmony!

An Evening of Indian Classical Music

Mrs. Vidya Dengle, Rama teacher’s teacher for over 20 years, together with Rama

teacher and the tabla accompanist (Ganesh Tanawde) enthralled the conference

participants with a selection of Raag’s including Raag Bhimpalas, Raag Sohoni,

Raag Mishra Bhairavi. Vidya-tai also talked about her perspective of the intricacies

and the state of Indian classical music and also of the guru-shishya parampara in

Indian classical music.

Vidya-tai’s session was beautifully complemented by several little children who

had selected to perform Indian classical pieces as part of their creative

performance session. We had Jayosthute, Vande Mataram, beautiful renditions of

classical Marathi songs, and Raag Kalawati. Young Aarya Jagdale’s performance of

Raag Bhimpalas in particular stood out – it was performed so gracefully and

confidently.

Western Music Appreciation

During the conference, Dr. Kedar Awati and Arnaud Devic took the participants

through sessions on western classical music and appreciation.

Dr. Kedar Awati gave three different lectures during the conference. He

introduced the youngest students to the orchestra using Benjamin Britten’s “A

Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra” including sharing his favorite pieces of

western classical music. And when he asked for questions – every hand from the

students must have shot up!! The best one of course was this cute little voice

saying “What’s the instrument that is played with the Tom and Jerry theme song”.

Dr. Awati’s other sessions included “Another way of listening to Music…the

Classical style” and “Some examples from 20th Century Western classical music”.

Arnaud Devic’s sessions were also a lot of fun for the kids. Arnaud, who heads the

Poona Music Society, and has been associated with the Suzuki school of Violin for

many years had multiple sessions with the students and the parents during the

conference. In these sessions, he covered various different aspects of classical

music. He also had a selection of musical instruments that he introduced to the

students and of course every student wanted to play each and every instrument

that Arnaud was talking about!!

Creative Performances from the Students

One of the high points of the last two days in Lavasa was the Creative

Performance sessions put together by the students themselves!! When the event

organizers were looking to find some open time slots on the calendar, there were

some thoughts that there wouldn’t be enough entries for the Creative

Performances. The organizers got that completely and totally wrong….there were

eventually some 50 entries from the 68 students present here and the Creative

Sessions were absolutely the most popular ones for the kids.

And they were truly creative…we had medleys from Bollywood, Goan folk songs,

medleys from Hollywood, a Wedding song from South Africa, Darth Vader come

to life, beautiful pieces like Ode to Joy, and even a little Paganini herself that

performing possibly the toughest song for a violinist – 24 Caprices!!!

During the panel discussion with the entire faculty there was an involved

discussion between the parents and the faculty about motivation for young

children to keep them engaged and practicing….looking at the creative entries

and performers there is no lack of motivation in the students!!!

In the non-violin creative performances as well, there were a lot of songs….to the

point where Advait and Hriddan were fighting over the mike while singing a

supposed duet together. Young Payoja mixed multiple passions together by

playing Long Long Ago performed on the Waveboard!!!

Musical Instruments

We had several breakout sessions going through the conference. Andreas Franke

who runs a violin workshop in Bangkok had several invaluable sessions on how to

take care of the violin, and multiple sessions describing how violins are built.

Every spare breathing moment in between was consumed fixing violins, fixing

pegs, and cleaning up bows. We’ve got a lot of happily re-furbished violins

courtesy Andy and his colleague from Franke Violins!!

The Indian musical instruments exhibition and session staged by Mr. Hemkant

Navdikar on the last day of the conference was also well attended and well

received.

Staying Fit

Dr. Sharmilee Rao Jadhav, a practicing physiotherapist, took multiple sessions

with the students, parents and teachers. She had the students loosened up and

made aware of why it was important to warm up, what sorts of stretching

exercises to do, and which parts of the body violinists needed to work on. And she

did it in the most fun and engaging ways – there were balloons, and play-doh, and

resistance bands, and dancing, and Simon Says games!!!

A Conference to Remember

In a moving opening address at the Lavasa portion of the conference, Rama

teacher had said that one of her goals for the conference was to put together an

opportunity for the students and parents to learn from the very best.

Every one of the faculty and the invited speakers at the conference was world-

class and worked very hard to make sure that the conference met Rama teacher’s

vision and goals.

We had so many moments of brilliant teaching throughout the conference. It’s

difficult to even pick examples: getting students to come up and lead the

musicians in the middle of a piece and watching them do it marvelously without

dropping a note, weaving stories into the songs, getting into different orchestral

groups and playing with the students, using analogies and memory aides and

examples to drive the point across….anything to get the students to be engaged

and to learn!! And the one technique that was devastatingly effective –

threatening to give a kiss to a young lad in case the vibrato wasn’t perfect !

All of the teachers put in a phenomenal effort throughout the conference. They

each handled 68 students over 6 days for almost 10 hours a day, without once

losing their cool and staying just as bright and cheerful and positive at the end of

a 10 hour day as there were at the beginning. Some of the faculty changed their

travel plans so that they could be part of the conference! It was obvious that a lot

of effort had gone into preparing for the individual sessions from each of the

faculty as well.

Beyond the brilliant teaching and the effort, the other thing that stood out was

the sincerity and honesty and complete engagement on the part of the teachers

and the guest speakers as well as the parents and students. The heart-felt

speeches from Rama teacher and Helen at the opening concert and again at the

closing concert, a very special and poignant moment at the panel discussion

where Jessica gave her own perspective as an ex-Suzuki student, the sessions with

Sarah and Helen teacher during their meetings with the parents that touched

upon so many personal moments, the involvement of the parents and senior

students as organizers and session coordinators….

This was truly a world class conference and workshop that has enriched us in so

many ways that we cannot even imagine – the scope and execution were truly

visionary. We will certainly remember this conference for a very long time and

even though it will take a while to digest and internalize the learnings over this

conference, we’re already looking forward to the next conference, and meeting

up with the faculty again!!!