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 ...