What do most Goan expats do when they return to the homeland over Christmastime after a long absence abroad? Have great reunions with family and friends over meal-tables brimming with traditional food and drink, take a lot of pictures, revisit old haunts, right?
Well, the Germany-based Mascarenhas father-and-son duo did all of the above, and then some. This seems to have become for them what the Brits would typically call a busman’s holiday. Both of them musicians by profession, they have immersed themselves whole-heartedly in music here as well, rehearsing and performing at the drop of a hat on borrowed instruments, almost since the time they got off the plane at Dabolim.
For 65-year old Alexander Mascarenhas, it is an emotional time indeed. He is returning to home soil for the first time after 43 long years!
He is a Lotllekar by descent and by birth. His parents were Espírito Santo Mascarenhas of Loutolim, and Lucília Jorge e Mascarenhas. Espírito Santo was also a musician, and served at the court of the Maharaja of Bikaner. Young Alexander got his first lessons in violin and cello from his father, who was a strict disciplinarian. Alexander also studied and briefly taught violin and cello at the Academia da Música Goa (Kala Academy to us today) when Maestro António de Figueiredo was at the helm.
An academic exchange scholarship from the government of erstwhile West Germany in 1967 permitted him to undertake higher study of violoncello at Folkwang Hochschule Essen, a reputed institution that has had several noted personalities as its students, among them the famous violinist Franz Peter Zimmermann.
Alexander has played widely in several professional orchestras throughout Germany over his long professional career. Its penultimate years have been devoted to pedagogy of cello and violin, something he continues to do even after his official retirement from work. He firmly believes that children should get their music education as early as possible, just as he did from his own father, and as he imparted to his son Oliver, as also his daughter, a gifted violinist.
Alexander is “positively astonished” to see how much Goa has developed. He describes the Kala Academy as “great” and expresses his gratitude to the Government of Goa for supporting the Kala Academy, “not only for western music but, all the Arts, which belong to the heritage of mankind”.
Third-generation musician Oliver Mascarenhas (www.olimas.com) was born in Mönchengladbach, Germany, in 1974. In keeping with his father Alexander’s early-education philosophy, Oliver got his first cello lessons at age four. He was later pupil of Jürgen Wolf, former Principal Cellist of Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf; and of Prof. Maria Kleigel, Musikhochschule Köln.
He proceeded to win first prize at several national and international competitions, and won his first audition at the age of 22 as Principal Cellist at NDR (NordDeutcsher Rundfunk) Radiophilharmonie Hanover.
After having toured all over the world with his orchestra, he started organising benefit concerts in aid of UNICEF. He has also toured Europe and China as a soloist.
Oliver plays a priceless 1746 instrument, the handiwork of famed Italian luthier Joseph Gaffino.
Oliver does not allow himself to be confined solely into the niche of western classical music, and crosses over with consummate ease and success, into the realms of jazz, pop and heavy metal.
This present visit to Goa has sparked off an enthusiastic interest in Goan music as well, in both father and son. In a burst of midnight frenetic energy along with our very own Schubert Cotta, they arranged the music of fellow Lotllekar Eduardo Menezes’ achingly beautiful “Dhoriachea lharari” for chamber ensemble comprising voice, 2 violins, cello, guitar and gumott, and performed it the following evening at a private concert to ecstatic applause.
Oliver also conducted a local music ensemble, the Panjim Open Philharmonic, at which his father also played, at Garcia da Orta garden, Panjim, on 4 January.
There will be a concert on 7 January 2011, 6.30 pm, at Kala Academy Black Box, combining their musicianship with home-grown talent, in the true spirit of collaboration. The young local musicians are Ashley Rego (violin) and Ingrid-Anne Nazareth (piano).
Ashley Rego, 25, is Goa’s leading young violinist, and is currently on the teaching faculty of the violin department of Kala Academy. He has acquired the Licentiate Examination (LTCL) of the Trinity College of Music, London. He is one of a tiny clutch of Goans who qualified for acceptance into the select ranks of the Mumbai-based Symphony Orchestra of India, and in the first violin section at that. He recently accompanied the orchestra at their international debut in Moscow. He is also concertmaster of the Goa State Orchestra. He attended the music-teachers’ training course in Wurzburg, Germany, in 2010.
Ingrid-Anne Nazareth also acquired the LTCL with distinction. She regularly accompanies candidates at the examinations of the International Board of Trinity Guildhall and Royal Schools. She teaches piano at Mapusa and performs frequently at local concerts, as soloist and accompanist. In the mainstream arena, she is also pursuing a PhD in electronics.
Both the Mascarenhases consider this homecoming trip to Goa, and the forthcoming concert at the Kala Academy, to be part of their profoundly meaningful musical journey that bridges Europe and Asia; Germany and Goa.