Thank you for the music

Two online editions later, the Con Brio festival is back onstage next weekend—with a history waiting to be told

To think a little boy growing up in the stables of the Wadia bungalow on Malabar Hill, where his father worked as a butler, dared to dream big enough to establish an empire that changed the country’s Western music retail and education scene forever. 

“This, without being a teacher or performer himself. The only thing John played was the gramophone!” his Lebanese wife Antoinette Gomes had quipped with a laugh during my earlier interview with her family. 

John Gomes established the legendary firm that holds exclusive rights to iconic international instrument brands, is India’s largest dealer in music books and administers one of the world’s largest centres for Trinity College London’s examinations board. The Furtados School of Music operates in over 200 schools and standalone centres to reach more than 1,00,000 students, combining traditional teaching methods with technology, a practice app and digital content. 

Con Brio festival director Smit Shah (on piano) and producer Anthony Gomes at the LM Furtado music store in Dhobi Talao

The curtain rises now on Con Brio 2023, thirteenth in the festival series Furtados hosts, a landmark event on the Western Classical music calendar. 

Humble though his beginnings were, what Gomes inherently had in heaps was belief in the dignity of labour and a head for enterprise. At 16, he went around Dhobi Talao selling Catholic religious items to community members in the neighbourhood villages of Cavel, Dabul and Khotachiwadi. Soon he heard that BX Furtado & Sons,in Jer Mahal there, risked being liquidated. 

Opened in 1865 by Goan immigrant Bernard Xavier Furtado, the shop sold religious supplies and serviced musical instruments. Next door, his brother Luis Manoel set up LM Furtado & Co, stocking print music. The tailors of Dhobi Talao—the transit point where sailors inhabiting native clubs called coors got measured for clothes before boarding their ship—pooled in funds for 25-year-old John to win an auction bid for BX Furtado in 1952. “If you’re honest, people back you, my father said,” remembers Anthony Gomes, director of the Furtados group of companies and producer of the Con Brio festival. 

Music in the Tuileries, oil on canvas by Edouard Manet, will mirror the mood of a performed piece

Working through nights, John turned around Furtados’ fortunes in three months. He introduced piano hire and a printing press with an arm to manufacture wedding cards. In 1959, he ventured to buy LM Furtado, persevering when it was near impossible with the 1961 government ban on imported instruments. Living till 2003, he was gratified to watch his four children march Furtados forward. The annual Con Brio Festival from 2010 and the Con Brio Foundation recently set up in 2021-22 are priorities honouring his legacy.

The idea of Con Brio was mooted in November 2009, when cellist Friedrich Kleinknecht met pianist and conductor Parvesh Java for an early morning coffee at Colaba’s Cafe Leopold. They planned a small musical celebration for Robert Schumann’s birth bicentenary the following year, for which Java invited pianists familiar to Bombay audiences, Marialena Fernandes and Paul Stewart. Once they came aboard, the producer of the “Schumania” programme fit into place. Furtados. 

The Gomes family wanted to institute a national music competition in the memory of their patriarch. Anthony and Java co-created the John Gomes Memorial Piano Competition and Festival in 2010, christening it Con Brio—“with spirit and vigour” in musical terms. The next year saw Mark Troop, founder of The Chamber Music Company, and soprano Patricia Rozario join them as core artistes steering the fest since. 

John Gomes (right) being conferred with Honorary Membership of Trinity College of Music at the hands of baritone Geraint Evans at Wigmore Hall, London, in 1987. Pic Courtesy/Furtados

While seasoned international professionals guided contestants and festival performers of Indian origin, over the years foreign contributions were gradually reduced and local presence increased, culminating in “Coming of Age”, the name of the 2018 event. Other distinct themes have included Celebrating Children, Preludes and Fugues, Celebrating 70 Years of Indian Independence, More Schumania: Celebrating Women with Clara (Clara Schumann): Focus on Women Composers; and Beethoven.

 “The mainstay of Con Brio, the John Gomes Memorial Piano Competition was never about just finding the best pianist, but an opportunity to get to know a larger number of pianists around the country and allow them to get to know each other,” explains Gomes. 

Members of the Con Brio family regularly return to grace with their artistry the festival with a propensity for highlighting the uncommon repertoire of lesser-known composers. For the first time in its history, the competition covers three disciplines: open piano, open violin/viola and open voice. 

“In keeping with our expanding horizons, the single category piano competition is replaced by ‘The Competition Suite’—a multi-category group providing a variety of instrumentalists at different stages in their musical journeys a chance to become part of the Con Brio support system,” says Gomes. 

The Pictures at a Concert theme of 2023 explores the intersection of music and visual art. Every piece will feature in tandem with an evocative artwork picked for it by its performer to match the particular mood and narrative flow of the music.

“Understanding a piece through multiple media is very rewarding,” says 24-year-old Smit Shah, the new festival director. The winner of last year’s Con Brio piano competition, who takes over from Java having helmed it for 10 years, Shah says, “Musicians use words like ‘colour’, ‘texture’, ‘form’ and ‘line’, coincidentally basic elements of visual art. Both aural and visual artworks are often termed ‘compositions’. These two genres have great potential to enhance each other’s meaning when they complement each other. Artistes seldom get to experience an art form outside of their domain. Con Brio this year hopefully catalyses a broader understanding of art as an expression of humanity.”

The singers are slated to perform themed sets,like Rahul Bharadwaj on flora and fauna, and Farah Ghadiali on the different times of day. Opera star Oscar Castellino will present selections from the song cycle Earth and Air and Rain by Gerald Finzi. 

“First experiencing Con Brio in 2017, along with my exceptional piano teacher [Steinway artiste Nadine Crasto], revealed the boundless artistic possibilities of Western Classical music,” says Shah.His2020 debut as participant propelled the win in the 2022 online edition. Then festival director, Java recommended him for the role of leading Con Brio this year.

Offering a platform to some of India’s most talented young discoveries in regions spread as wide across the country as from Nagaland and Siliguri to Tuticorin and Thrissur, this year has attracted the highest number of entries: 70 for piano, 17 for violin and 24 for voice. Of these, six per category—totalling 18—will contest the semi-final round on September 15 at the NCPA, each having chosen an example of visual art illustrative mirroring the performance. Concluding what promises to be a fine feast for the ears and eyes, an adaptation of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition on the closing night (September 17, starting 6.30 pm onwards), will involve every festival performer. 

Recollecting certain tours de force he arranged as festival director for a decade, Java, who passes on the baton to Shah, describes an ambitious showcasing of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony finale, for the 2015 concert commemorating Furtados’ 150th year. “From placing eight pianos on the Experimental Theatre stage, scoring the work for 16 pianists and 32 hands, to adding choral bits in English, to rehearsing three separate choirs, to assembling all the performing forces with a single rehearsal, to situating and tuning eight pianos…the mammoth project would be impossible without Furtados behind it and Anthony’s never-say-die attitude,” says Java. “Initially, I had the crazy idea to celebrate 150 years of Furtados with 150 pianos. Not surprisingly, Anthony was willing to consider. Practicality prevailing, we settled for eight. It was a new way to hear the piece. Certain parts almost indiscernible in the orchestra start coming through on the piano. It was a treat to experience these hidden voices.”

On the fest’s first evening, Java will sit at the piano with incoming director Shah, with a Rachmaninoff four-hand transcription of a Tchaikovsky waltz—“I thought it significant to play a piece with Smit. Luckily, we’ve found someone who has everything it takes to keep Con Brio going. This piece is appropriate. Tchaikovsky decided that a young person with fresh ideas should transcribe his creation for four hands and it fell into the capable hands of Rachmaninoff. I strongly feel this way about Smit.”

Shah considers this Sleeping Beauty waltz the perfect opening for Con Brio’s post-pandemic revival. “This year commemorates Rachmaninoff’s 150th birth anniversary and Tchaikovsky’s 130th death anniversary,” he says.“The former composer-pianist respected and admired the latter, a sentiment I share for my mentor Parvesh. More than the waltz alone, the selected pieces brought to stage by the performers will enhance the competition festival’s 
immersive experience.”

Beyond this festival, the Con Brio Foundation adheres to its main objective of furthering music education year-round for aspiring instrumentalists, singers, composers and theorists. Its activities embrace outreach programmes and advisory services for educators, workshops, professional development and career guidance, music education recognition and advocacy.“We are committed to propagating the joy of making music in our country,” says Gomes. “Con Brio will continue extending opportunities for musicians to excel in a spirit of collaboration, inclusiveness and diversity.”

Author-publisher Meher Marfatia writes fortnightly on everything that makes her love Mumbai and adore Bombay. You can reach her at meher.marfatia@mid-day.com/www.meher marfatia.com

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