Time to Get Musical

By Clara Rodrigues
Posted on 2008-08-22
Western Classical music is getting to be quite popular in Goa with many parents sending their children to learn the art. Once considered elitist, now its different, students are taking up western classical music for the sheer love of it.
Western classical music in Goa exists without much commercialisation, which allows genuine music lovers to enjoy its true beauty minus the glamour. Concerts and orchestras organised in Goa draw a good response from the people but very often, poor publicity affects the numbers, rues Mollet D’sa, a member of the Goa Symphony Orchestra.
Quite a few are coming forward to learn western classical music in Goa but some of them have a flawed attitude towards it. They often think learning Classical music is all about learning a few classical pieces says Jerome Rodrigues, whose music compositions have been played by the Navy at the Republic day celebrations in Delhi ‘the learning of the form of classical music is not given importance’, a fact that hinders the proper study of this genre of music.
Onilda Fernandes, a seventh grade Western classical violin player narrates how it was her dad’s dream that she take up classical music, something which she reluctantly did at first, but over the years she says that it has become a passion for her. Having performed at many concerts in Goa such as the ‘String Ensemble’, Onilda says playing the violin for a classical performance may be similar to playing a violin normally, however classical music is more demanding as it has plenty of variations, some times you have to go very fast sometimes extremely slow. You have to do all this with the purpose of putting the composers expressions across to the people. The audience must understand what the composer meant while writing the piece. A message that is universal and eternal and not time bound.
One star, shining brightly in the field of western classical music is Jerome Rodrigues, who has won laurels nationally being even conferred with the coveted Presidents Police medal, a recognition credited to no other Goan in music. Unfortunately, the modest Jerome’s achievements very often go unnoticed, one reason being perhaps of the bias that Western classical music is a hangover of the imperialist as opposed to the Indian classical music.
Having played in the Indian Naval Band, Jerome further went on to bag a distinction in the Diploma of Licentiate Military Music Examination. Presently, the conductor of the Goa Symphony Orchestra at the Kala Academy, since 2006, Jerome has composed and made some fine arrangements whose melodious strains continue to be a part of many of the songs played by the Indian Navy, Army, Air force and state police bands. His latest masterpiece is ‘Noketr Goinchea Xarachem’.
An important feature of Jerome’s work is his ability in successfully translating the Indian beat and raags of Indian Classical music into a Western beat, which is not an easy task to do. He changes the key but the main theme remains unblemished. A typical example of this would be Jerome’s composition of the ‘Prelude and Fugue’. When in the Indian Navy, Jerome replaced the Naval Salute and the Naval March Past tune from the old British music with his own Indian composition. Going off the beaten track, taking western classical music to new heights is what Jerome aims for.