Programme 25th March:
Mozart: Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285, Beethoven: Trio in B flat major, Op. 11 and Dvořák: String Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. 77
Programme 26th March:
Telemann: Concerto for four violins in D, TWV 40:202, Brahms: Piano Trio No. 2 in C major, Op. 87 and Dohnányi: Piano Quintet No. 1, Op. 1
As an ongoing project, members of the SOI Chamber Orchestra have been working with Ralph De Souza to study chamber music repertoire. The SOI Chamber Orchestra forms the core of the Symphony Orchestra of India which is India’s first and only professional Symphony Orchestra. Founded in 2006, by NCPA Chairman Khushroo N. Suntook and violin virtuoso Marat Bisengaliev, the orchestra has worked with such renowned conductors as Carlo Rizzi, Martyn Brabbins, Charles Dutoit, Yuri Simonov, Jacek Kaspszyk, Lior Shambadal, Rafael Payare, Adrian Leaper, Johannes Wildner, Duncan Ward, Karl Jenkins, Mischa Damev, Evgeny Bushkov, Alexander Anissimov, Christoph Poppen, and others. 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, Angel Blue, Zakir Hussain, Béla Fleck, Tamás Vásáry, and Lena Neudauer, amongst others.
Ralph De Souza has been 2nd violinist of the Endellion Quartet since 1986. Born in Bombay, he began violin lessons from an early age with his father, and later with Melbourne Halloween. His father, a doctor, was a self-taught violin fanatic who put Ralph on a plane at the age of ten to go to the Yehudi Menuhin School, where he found himself sharing a room with Messrs. Garfield Jackson and Nigel Kennedy. Having survived this culture shock, he then went to the Curtis Institute in the USA to study with Ivan Galamian and Jaime Laredo. In 1977 he won the Royal Overseas League Competition in London, which launched his career. He returned for several years to the Menuhin school to teach and now returns often to the city of his birth to work with musicians of the Symphony Orchestra of India.
