Alexander Briger was settling in at the Trident Hotel, Mumbai, when we called him for a chat. And despite the jetlag, the classical music conductor from Sydney couldn’t help but express excitement over what’s lined up in the coming week. Starting this Sunday, he will lead the Australian World Orchestra (AWO) in a countrywide tour across Chennai, Kochi and Mumbai, three years after they debuted in India along with legendary Indian conductor Zubin Mehta. The upcoming tour in India is one of the highlights of the Australia Fest, a countrywide festival celebrating Australian culture in India, and commemorates the 90th anniversary celebrations of The Madras Seva Sadan.
“One of the main challenges of being a conductor is knowing your scores at the back of your hand. For this tour, we took around two weeks to prepare,” says the 49-year-old musician, who is the nephew of the late Australian conductor Sir Charles Mackerras. The AWO was formed in 2011 by Alexander, and performed its first orchestra in Sydney in the same year. Since then they have performed pulsating concerts across the world, with Alexander particularly mentioning one in 2015, where they invited Sir Simon Rattle (of the Berlin Philharmonic) to conduct the orchestra. “Over the years we have grown massive in size. This year we have over 50 musicians in our group, with one Indian-Australian, Sagar Nagaraj, one of our violinists, who is also going to perform with us,” says Alexander, who is the artistic director and chief conductor of the troupe.
Recalling AWO’s last concert in the city, Alexander is all praise for Zubin. “He is like a God in this country, and he has been hugely instrumental in my own growth as a musician as well. I do not know if the scale of this year’s concerts will match that of last time, but I can tell you we are all very excited nevertheless,” he says, as he reminisces his time with Zubin. “I once introduced cricketer Brett Lee to him over dinner and he was extremely happy,” he says, talking about the common craze for cricket between both the countries.
This year, the orchestra will present operatic and symphonic works of Mozart, Bizet and Beethoven. “One of the constructive bits of feedback we got from our last performance in Chennai was that the our pieces were a tad long. Hence this time, we have kept them short and simple,” says Alexander, adding that performing along with them will be pianist and KM Music Conservatory faculty Adam Greig and violinist Daniel Dodds. Alexander and his troupe will also be accompanied by Paris-based mezzo soprano Caroline Meng at Mumbai and Kochi, a city that has never experienced a Western classical orchestra performance before. “The gravity of this fact and the importance of this performance is immense for Kochi,” says Alexander, who has performed with multiple orchestras across the world, such as the Philharmonic Orchestra in London and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
AWO also has an academy for students that conducts workshops and outreach programmes, a product of which is Sagar himself, who was previously with the Sydney Youth Orchestra and is now with the NSW Willoughby Symphony Orchestra. “He is a wonderful player and one of the youngest (around 20 years old) in our troupe. This will be the first time he is visiting India,” remarks Alexander. This year, the academy will collaborate with students of AR Rahman’s The Sunshine Orchestra, and the Centre for Autism India, Tiruvalla.
September 23, at Sir Mutha Venkatasubba Rao Hall. 7.30 pm.
September 25, at Grand Hyatt Kochi Bolgatty. 7.30 pm.
September 28, at National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai. 7 pm.
Tickets available online.