A musical rendezvous in Mumbai

Chamber music specialist and cello player Gauthier has been at the helm of the Arties Festival for the past three years and has brought several Chamber music artistes to India in six editions of the bi-yearly festival. While it’s been more about popular music for so long, Gauthier is set to offer some rare works this time around.

“Western classical music is not so popular in India and so it has been a learning experience for all the artistes who have come here. While we have been performing some popular Beethovan, Bach and Mozart symphonies, this time we have chosen some lesser known works. It would be interesting to see how the audience responds,” says Gauthier. So this time, it’s going to be some Beethoven Serenade for String trio Op. 8, Shostakovich - Viola sonata Op 147, Paganini - Pieces for Solo Violin and Dvorak- Piano quartet Op 87.

The novelty of Arties has also been that with every edition, a couple of new musicians come down to Mumbai from France to perform. This year it’s going to be Hugues Borsarello on violin, Nicolas Bone on voila, Olivier Patey on clarinet, Emmanuel Christien  on piano apart from Gauthier Herrmann on cello.

“We artistes perform in various countries in Asia like Japan and China but in India, western classical music is not so popular and it’s interesting for us to come and perform here. It gives us powerful and important experiences that we can take with us when we travel to other countries to perform,” he adds.

Gauthier has also been pro-evolution of Chamber music. “Though students learn basic music in school, it is not enough. They don’t learn how to read music and master an instrument. For every kind of music, it is important to evolve especially for classical and folk music, so we can take it to the new generation,” says Gauthier.

The Arties Festival will take place at the NCPA, Mumbai today.