Calcutta part 3

With only a week left in this incredible experience Zsofia and I have been looking back over the past few weeks here and wondering where they have gone!! The past month especially has flown past as all the challenges that a new place present have been diluted by the familiarity with our new home.

Most of our students have made obvious improvements and have really taken on board all our advice and guidance. Pedal technique and sightreading had been a particual struggle with the children but they have all transformed their playing which is so encouraging to see.

I have successfully taught the choir at Dolna school Ave Maria which they now sing beautifully and both the adult chamber orchestra and the childrens orchestra have come a long long way!! When I first heard them they weren't listening to each other, moving together and rarely playing in tune! But now they sound like  a real orchestra!! The Calcutta chamber orchestra (made up of some string teachers at Calcutta School of Music) have definitely improved the most, playing Mozart really well! The junior orchestra  too have improved as an ensemble and are having a little concert this saturday (over skype to my sister!) as they very rarely get a chance to perform.

Zsofia and I are throwing a workshop this Tuesday for all the teachers and students we have met in the past 2 months to cover all the reoccuring issues we have come across. We hope to advise them on practice techniques, posture, musicality and phrasing, aural skills and, of course, sight reading.

As well as our work in the school Zsofia and I have explored a lot more of Calcutta as our confidence has grown and we embrace the hectic nature of this city. We have seen the beautiful Victoria Memorial and taken trams over the whole city to try and see as much as possible and understand life here more. Our return home is strangely daunting as London will feel so small and quiet in comparison with the noise and busstle of Calcutta, the sheer number of people here is overwhelming enough - in fact there are more people in this City than there are in all of Hungary, where Zsofia is from.

I know we have both enjoyed this experience and it will be one we always remember, our teaching and playing have both developed massively and we hope we have blessed the people here and encouraged and inspired the children to love music as much as we do.

Jess and Zsofia in Calcutta

We have had 3 very exhausting and hectic weeks now in Calcutta doing anything and everything thats has been thrown at us! We soon realised that the brief of 'teach the piano' had a slightly broader meaning than we originally understood, but it's been pretty exciting! We have not only been teaching the piano, but also violin, theory, recorder and accordion!! (the last two instruments we have absolutely no experience in..) We have also been teaching songs in assembly and judging major competitions!! All very exciting things to keep us busy with. Last Saturday was 'Crescendo 3' a music competition hosted by Calcutta School of Music in which Zsofia and I were 'renowned UK Judges, prolific in the music sphere!' (see link below for a brief article, we were interviewed and had many photos and the tv news report of the event is soon to be aired on tv!!!)

http://www.indiablooms.com/LifestyleDetailsPage/2012/lifestyleDetails160712d.php

That was a particularly exciting day, and we felt very honoured and were awarded flowers and hampers and were generally made to feel like royalty - which was great!

This Saturday also held it's excitement as we were asked to perform in CSM's 'Monsoon Concert', we played Beethoven Spring sonata (Me on violin, Zsofia on piano) and Zsofia played Mozart Rondo in A minor beautifully! All of the performers were extremely enthusiastic, some more than the piece really required! Our favourite was a small boy playing Chopin 'Raindrop' Prelude, the raindrops sounding more akin to hail stones, or suitable a Monsoon!

We are still struggling with the variety of smells we are faced with every day, the different food and the extreme heat, but we get more used to it as we grow to know more about Calcutta.
The students are generally very enthusiastic and some of them are really talented and a pleasure to teach. The teachers also are equally as enthusiastic, really willing to learn - some of them even take lessons from us! They all take notes furiously in our lessons putting the pressure on our teaching skills!!! We especially love coaching the orchestra (Calcutta Chamber Orchestra) each week as we get to work with passionate adults playing great works like Mozart Piano Concerto (no. 12) and Tchaikovsky String Serenade, this is more challenging but very enjoyable.

Calcutta 1

 After being here almost a week I am certainly more settled, although I wouldn't go as far as saying I know my way around at all yet! India is an overwhelming place with exciting but dangerous driving and general business on the streets but the teaching makes up for everything else and adds some stability and familiarity to my days.. The children are lovely and play much better than I expected, so the lessons aren't tedious but grown up and dynamic - more responsive than some English kids! All the teachers are desperate to learn as well so stay in the lessons and are very intelligent, surprising me with their interests and good english... The children are extremely hard working so even the less talented ones are difficult to teach, and in general I have been 'wow'ed by some of the talent I have seen.
My work is divided between 3 very different schools, the Calcutta School of music is where I teach violin and theory, in C4 I teach mainly piano, and at Dolna school I seem to be running assemblies and teaching half the school a song at once!! This very wide range means the teaching is always different and I have to adapt a lot, but it's still enjoyable!
I'm still getting to grips with life here in India, and 2 months seems like a very vast amount of time!  But with only 7 weeks left of this amazing experience I'm trying to get all the experiences I can and hopefully really influence the teaching over here ...