City violinists to participate in world music convention

PUNE: A team of 20 school-going violinists from Pune will take part in the 15th World Suzuki Music convention to be held in Melbourne, Australia, between April 14 and 19. This is the first time India will be represented at a Suzuki world convention.
The violinists are aged between 6 and 15 and are students of the city based Suzuki school of violin', run by violinist Rama Chobhe.They have been learning the violin in the internationally acclaimed Suzuki style. Chobhe trained in this style under Richard Coff in Colorado, USA.
Sinichi Suzuki (1898-1998), the ace violinist from Japan had advocated the theory that if children are taught music in the same way as their mother tongue, they pick it up most easily. Today, there are several hundred Suzuki music schools across the world adhering to his method.
The Melbourne convention will see tutorials being given by teachers from all over the world for instruments like violin, cello, piano, guitar, harp and voice training. Various concerts will also be performed by young students from all over the world, who have been selected through a prior audition process.
The Pune students will present a 10-minute rendition each of both western classical and Hindustani classical music at the convention. Their western classical music performance will showcase the works of composers like Vivaldi, Seitz, Paganini and Bach, while their Hindustani classical ragas will feature the ragas Kalavati and Shivaranjani, a few bhajans and patriotic songs.
Chobhe will herself present a 10-minute solo rendition in Hindustani classical music.
"The Melbourne convention will present our Pune youngsters with a splendid opportunity to see the best talent from across the world and will motivate them to improve their own performance," says Chobhe.
Aditi De, parent of Aparajita (10), who began learning the violin from Chobhe when she was just two years old, is understandably excited about the convention. "It will present an opportunity for our children to pit themselves against the best in the world. We will find out where we stand," De said.
The children hail from city schools such as Loyola, St Mary's girls and boys school, Vidya Valley, Helena's, DAV, Aksharnandan and Abhinava Vidyalaya.