Cellist Gauthier Herrmann has been to India at least 17 times in the last few years. This time, he is in Mumbai for the Arties Festival. What brings Herrmann back to India again and again is his affection for the country and its musical tradition.
“I love Indian music,especially Hariprasad Chaurasia. He’s amazing,” says Herrmann who is quite clued into Indian classical music as well as Hindi film music too. He says that he’s keen on trying his hand at various other sounds and genres apart from classical music. “I am working on a Bollywood project. The work will begin in 2010,” is all he’s willing to reveal at this point.
Herrmann is someone who has never restricted himself to the purest form of western classical music. He believes in exploring and experimenting. “We should just stop putting everything in boxes like pop and classical music. For example, the Ebene quartet, invited for this edition of the festival, is playing classical as well as jazz and pop music. In fact, they are planning to record a new pop album in a few weeks,” says Herrmann.
The most important challenge he thinks for classical music is not about purity, but to be able to reach out to the younger population. “The most important thing is to bring the youngsters to the concert. But I think with this challenge we have started to achieve this because in Pune, for example, there were many youngsters in the audience.”
When and where?
Quatuor Ebene, Mathilde Borsarello (Violin), Gauthier Herrmann (Cello) and Samuel Parent (Piano) will perform at the Arties Festival on Sunday, November 15, at the NCPA, Nariman Point.
Comments
