young talent concert at ncpa

sonal left for delhi yesterday and mukul and me dropped her to bombay central station before going for a western classical music concert at the ncpa in the evening. the experimental theater is a simple black box with rexene and steel seats set in tiers. our seats were in the catwalk like balcony from where we could overlook the wooden stage and the audience of catholic chiffon dressed women and parsi queens and women (and charles correa with his wife) . one particularly decrepit woman caught my attention while she sat alone near a statue of a greek goddess in the lobby.

this was the first time that i heard western classical music being played live. since i don’t really know the nuances of the compositions it mostly sounded very pretty to me- and any thing that sounded like a misstep i assumed was an eccentricity of the composition. the flautist started, the pianist from nagaland next and the soprano from chennai ended each segment. she was the diva of the lot. she sang ‘summertime’ towards the end and it was the only one of the songs i knew. besides the mozart ‘queen of the night aria’ with its strange high pitched trills and coos.