Symphony Orchestra of India

International tours have seen the SOI perform in the Hall of Columns, Moscow; the Royal Opera House, Muscat; and the Emirates Palace Auditorium, Abu Dhabi, to open the 2015-16 Abu Dhabi Classics season. In January 2016, the SOI presented three sold-out concerts in Switzerland—at the Tonhalle, Zurich; Victoria Hall, Geneva; and the Tonhalle, St. Gallen—on invitation from the Migros Kulturprozent Classics series. Le Temps hailed “the commitment, the enthusiasm, and the discipline of this ensemble, which played with ferocious energy and appetite.” In February 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.

Apart from the mainstays of the symphonic repertoire, the NCPA and SOI have also presented large-scale productions including fully-staged operas. In 2017, the SOI premiered a highly-acclaimed, innovative new production of La Bohème, conducted by Carlo Rizzi, featuring an international star cast.

The Orchestra’s core group of musicians is resident at the NCPA all year round and forms the SOI Chamber Orchestra, performing a regular series of concerts through the year at the NCPA and at other venues around Mumbai and India. Additional players are recruited from a talented pool of professionals from around the world.

The Orchestra places great emphasis on education and many of the SOI musicians are also teachers, working to develop the musical potential amongst young people in India. Chief amongst 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, with the aim of growing the number of Indian musicians in the SOI in the future.

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Dalal was on faculty at the University of Oklahoma, where he was Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra and conductor of the University Opera Theater, from 1991 to 1993. In 1994, Dalal led the Utah Symphony Orchestra in a special gala concert for the Lord Mayor of London. That same year, his performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony with the American Youth Symphony prompted enthusiastic endorsements from Zubin Mehta and Daniel Barenboim. In 1995, Dalal was one of 17 finalists in the prestigious ‘First Leonard Bernstein Jerusalem International Conductors Competition’. In 1996, by nomination, he participated in the American Symphony Orchestra League ‘National Conductor’s Preview’ and spent that summer at the Ravinia Festival by invitation of Christoph Eschenbach. In 1997-98 Dalal served at the Dallas Symphony as cover conductor for Andrew Litton and was shortlisted for the assistant position with the Minnesota Orchestra. In 1999, Dalal led the Florida Philharmonic on a four-concert outreach tour. The enthusiastic response led to Dalal receving the key to the city from the mayor. In 2001, he conducted the Chicago Civic Orchestra in audition by invitation of Daniel Barenboim and conducted the Florida Orchestra during their search for a Resident Conductor.

Dalal joined the Symphony Orchestra of India in 2006 and in 2014 was appointed Associate Music Director, having served for several years prior to that as Resident Conductor.  He regularly conducts performances at home and on tour and is actively involved in the Orchestra’s educational initiatives and in helping shape the growth of the organization. A keen musicologist, Dalal delivers lectures, pre-concert talks, and pens articles and programme notes. He also maintains an active blog on his website, covering a wide range of topics.

In 2015, Dalal conducted the world premiere of a new tabla concerto, Peshkar, by Ustad Zakir Hussain, commissioned by the Symphony Orchestra of India, in Mumbai and on tour in Switzerland. He led the London premiere of Peshkar with the BBC Concert Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall.

Recent highlights include conducting the SOI on their highly-acclaimed maiden tour to the UK with concerts in London, Guildford and Birmingham.

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Alpesh frequently appears as guest conductor with acclaimed international orchestras including the London Symphony, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre National d’Île de France, Orchestre National de Lille, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He enjoys collaborations with distinguished soloists such as Nicola Benedetti, Colin Currie, Pablo Ferrández, Veronika Eberle, Ilya Gringolts, Benjamin Grosvenor, Stephen Hough, Leila Josefowicz, Pavel Kolesnikov, Johannes Moser, Arcadi Volodos, and singers Karen Cargill, Markus Werba and Christianne Stotijn among others.

Following his outstanding debut in 2015, he was appointed Principal Conductor of Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini in Parma and performed and recorded much of the great symphonic repertoire, including a complete cycle of Brahms’ symphonies.  Alongside the recently critically acclaimed RhineGold, other notable opera titles include Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, West Side Story and a production of Turandot in Valencia at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía.

A keen advocate of music education for young people, Alpesh is a patron of Awards for Young Musicians, a UK charity supporting talented young people from disadvantaged backgrounds on their musical journeys. He has also worked with ensembles such as the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and the symphony orchestras of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the Royal Northern College of Music. He was the conductor of the 2015 BBC Ten Pieces film which brought the world of classical music into secondary schools across the UK and received a distinguished BAFTA award.

Born in Birmingham, Alpesh studied ‘cello under Eduardo Vassallo at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester before continuing at the RNCM to pursue the prestigious Master’s Conducting Course. Alpesh has studied with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and was mentored by Andris Nelsons and Edward Gardner in his post as Assistant Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2016.   

Birmingham Opera Company’s 2019 production of Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk directed by the late Sir Graham Vick was a triumph and led to Chauhan being named ‘Newcomer of the Year’ in the 2021 International Opera Awards. In 2022 he was delighted to receive the Conductor Award from the Italian National Association of Music Critics for ‘Miglior Direttore’ for concerts across Italy in 2021.

Alpesh was honoured to receive an OBE in HRH The Queen’s New Year’s Honours in January 2022 for Services to the Arts.

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In recent years Farnes’ international profile has flourished. He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in February 2019 with Verdi’s Falstaff and was due to return in 2020 to conduct Manon Lescaut, before the Coronavirus crisis. In 2020 he conducted La Traviata with Royal Danish Opera, and during summer 2021 conducted semi-staged performances of Tosca for English National Opera at the Crystal Palace Bowl.

During his time at Opera North, he developed a close affinity with Wagner, touring concert performances of the operas across the UK. His project to perform the entire Ring Cycle six times in 2016 won public and critical acclaim, including the 2017 Royal Philharmonic Society Opera and Music Theatre award, with Farnes named Conductor of the Year.

As well as specialising in opera he guest conducts symphonic orchestras across the UK, including London Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.  He opens the 22/23 season conducting the Symphony Orchestra of India in Mumbai.

In his educational work he conducted for and served on the jury of the 2019 and 2020 Gold Medal competitions at Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he was a student himself.

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Marat was born in Kazakhstan in 1962 and made his debut at the age of nine. He studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow with two of the legendary names in violin tuition: Boris Belinki and Valery Klimov. He was a prize-winner in 1988 at the Leipzig International Bach Competition, and in 1991 won first prize at the International Nicanor Zabaleta Competition in Spain, also receiving the Special Virtuoso Prize.

Since signing a major recording contract with Naxos and Marco Polo in 1991, Marat has produced a number of acclaimed recordings. His recording of the Mendelssohn Concertos (Northern Sinfonia) was the Gramophone Critic’s Choice of the Year in 1998. Fanfare nominated his recording of Havergal Brian’s concerto (BBC SSO) as Critics’ Choice 1994. Sony BMG awarded him a Gold Disc for his recording Tlep by Karl Jenkins. In 2000, he received the 1^st Platinum Tarlan Award and the Government Medal of Honour in Kazakhstan.

A noted interpreter of the works of Sir Edward Elgar, his album Elgar: Re-discovered works for violin, Vol. 1 (Black Box) was nominated for the 1999 Gramophone Award and the second volume was named by Classic FM as one of the “Top 5 Elgar recordings”.  His three-CD anthology Elgar: The Violin Works, which received the Gold Disc award from the American Elgar Foundation was recently reissued by Naxos. In 2013, Marat received the first Elgar Proliferation Award from the American Elgar Foundation.

Apart from the SOI, Marat has also founded two orchestras in his home country. In 2003, he founded the West Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra. Their first CD—Karl Jenkins’ Requiem—was released on EMI and reached No. 1 in the classical sales charts and was No. 1 in Hall of Fame in Classic FM magazine. In 2012, he founded the Almaty Symphony Orchestra.

Marat has performed in over 35 countries, with orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish, Philharmonia, Warsaw Philharmonic, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, BBC Ulster, Beijing Symphony Orchestra, and Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. He has played in leading venues around the world including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Royal Albert Hall, Barbican, Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall, and the Forbidden City Concert Hall.

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As a composer, he has scored music for numerous feature films, major events, and productions. He has composed three concertos, and his third, the first-ever concerto for tabla and orchestra, was premiered in India in September 2015 by the Symphony Orchestra of India, premiered in Europe and the UK in 2016, and in the USA in April 2017 by the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. A Grammy Award-winner, Zakir is the recipient of countless awards and honours, including the Padma Vibhushan, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, the USA’s National Heritage Fellowship and Officer in France’s Order of Arts and Letters. Voted “Best Percussionist” by both the Downbeat Critics’ Poll and the Modern Drummer Reader’s Poll over several years, Zakir was honoured in 2018 by the Montreal Jazz Festival with their Antonio Carlos Jobim Award. Zakir has received several honorary doctorates and, in 2019, became a Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellow, a rare lifetime distinction afforded to only 40 artists at a time by India’s reigning cultural institution. Zakir is the 2022 Kyoto Prize laureate in Arts and Philosophy, awarded by the Inamori Foundation to “those who have contributed significantly to the scientific, cultural and spiritual betterment of mankind.”

As an educator, he conducts many workshops and lectures each year, has been in residence at Princeton University and Stanford University, and, in 2015, was appointed Regents Lecturer at UCBerkeley. His yearly workshop in the San Francisco Bay Area, conducted for the past 30 years, has become a widely anticipated event for performers and serious students of tabla. He is the founder and president of Moment Records, an independent record label presenting rare live concert recordings of Indian classical music and world music. Zakir was resident artistic director at SFJazz from 2013 until 2016, and was honoured with SF Jazz’s Lifetime Achievement Award on January 18, 2017, in recognition of his “unparalleled contribution to the world of music”.

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An avid ensemble player, Kolesnikov regularly performs in piano duo with Samson Tsoy and collaborates with other musicians such as cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, the Hermes String Quartet and the Calidore String Quartet. In 2019 he performed the complete cycle of Brahms violin and viola sonatas with Lawrence Power.  He formed Trio Aventure with Elina Buksha and Aurelien Pascal.

Kolesnikov records for Hyperion, with repertoire ranging from rarely heard harpsichord pieces by Louis Couperin to Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons. His Chopin Mazurkas album won Diapason d’Or de l’annee, one of world’s most prestigious awards in the area of recording. His 6th album, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, was released in Autumn 2020. He collaborated with legendary Belgian dancer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker on a new choreographic work based on the Goldberg Variations which was premiered in August 2020 at the Wiener Festwochen and is currently touring the world.

In 2019, together with Samson Tsoy, Kolesnikov started Ragged Music Festival at the Ragged School Museum, former “ragged school” of Dr Barnardo in London’s East End. In the same year Kolesnikov was honoured with the Critics’ Circle Young Talent Award 2019 for piano, praised for his “intensely personal interpretations, often daring in their originality” and his “crusading vision”.

Download the full biography on the link above.

Download the full biography on the link above.

Download the full biography on the link above.