On March 1, 2020, at the National Centre for the Performing Arts’ (NCPA) resplendent Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, the city witnessed a rare symphony being performed - César Franck’s Symphony in D minor, courtesy the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) with conductor Laurent Petitgirard. It marked the end of SOI’s spring season and as the applause grew louder post performance, little did we realise that the silence of not being able to hear that for another 10 months - due to the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns - would be so deafening. So, it is only fitting that SOI’s founding music director, Marat Bisengaliev, sums up the feeling of seeing the orchestra perform on stage again as “surreal”.

Marat Bisengaliev