A symphony of maestros

It's that time of the year when the homegrown Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) gears up to serenade Mumbai the choicest Western classical overtures and concertos. The venue? The opulent Jamshed Bhabha Theatre at Mumbai's NCPA, with five concerts slated between September 13-28.

This season, all ears are tuning into 'The Universe' by Welsh composer Sir Karl Jenkins, which SOI's music director Marat Bisengaliev had commissioned him to write for Kazakhstan's Expo 2017. The icing on the cake: Jenkins, recently declared as the the most-performed musician in the world, will conduct the piece himself.

The rest of the lineup has SOI Founder, octogenarian KN Suntook, very excited. "We've got a fine conductor, Jacek Kaspszyk, whose huge career includes stints with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Rotterdam and Czech Philharmonics. Touted as a cornerstone act is the Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104 that Hungarian cellist István Várdai will attempt. Then Mozart's very last symphony, (Symphony No. 41), is glorious, a great challenge to conduct and unbelievably perfect, especially the fugues (short phrases of two-three voices repeated at intervals) at the end. I've been listening to it since I was five. My mother would play it to me."

The season has an Eastern European flavour to it as Dvo?ák hailed from erstwhile Czechoslovakia, and Beethoven and Mozart lived on the east side of Germany, reveals Suntook. Crowning it all is Stephen Hough, the British pianist and polymath – composer, blogger, painter, novelist and professor – who'll play Beethoven's popular, Emperor, Concerto No. 5. It's one of the pieces this season that brims of romance. Beethoven was already on the brink of romanticism and that reflects in his Concerto No. 5. So does Korngold's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 that is sweet, melodious, but now rarely performed. It's a piece I love that China's Dan Zhu will perform under Kaspszyk's baton."