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The Documentary: A Bombay Symphony

The Documentary: A Bombay Symphony: A Bombay Symphony

Zubin Metha - Conductor

14/10/2014 GMT

A Bombay Symphony

BBC World Service - The Documentary, A Bombay Symphony, A Bombay Symphony

India's love with Western classical music, and the controversy it is causing

India's love with Western classical music, and the controversy it is causing in the country.

India is falling in love with Western classical music. In his home-city Mumbai, Zareer Masani encounters the country's first national ensemble, the Symphony Orchestra of India. He visits Furtado's, the city's oldest music shop, which sells hundreds of pianos a year, and discovers that thousands of children learn a Western instrument. 
 
Yet, Zareer finds that this is not the total success it seems. Only a dozen of the Symphony Orchestra of India’s members are Indian; the pianos Furtado's sell are status symbols; students learn to play because this will help them get into foreign universities. But, Zareer finds out, there is real love for Western music, among Mumbai's most elite and poorest - he discovers a choir of the children of sex workers. Zareer considers these contradictions, and the implications for India's own classical music.

(Photo: Indian conductor Zubin Metha conducts the orchestra during a rehearsal in Mumbai, 7 October 2008. Credit: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images)

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India is falling in love with Western classical music, and Zareer Masani looks at the controversy this is causing in the country

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