So proud of our kids! You can watch and hear them in this video of the INK talks event in Goa in September 2016.
Category: Hamara School
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Child’s Play India Foundation kids and teachers play Perpetual Motion (Suzuki) 28 Feb 2016
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSItFKPfkno]
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Video: Violin kids make progress!
Thanks to the dedicated efforts of visiting British Suzuki teacher Clare Raybould and our violin teacher at Hamara School, Syanna Fernandes, the children are making rapid strides. Here’s a short video taken a few days ago. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNKCKJ5Y7wc
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Meet the Woodwinds @ Hamara School
Last week, by sheer coincidence, we had two talented musicians visiting us in Goa. Stuart Potter is a bassoonist currently teaching the instrument at the Kodaikanal International School. He was in Goa on a holiday and we were very pleased to have him share his music with us.
Akihide Noguchi is a Japanese clarinetist currently working in the Philippines. He has begun a project similar to Child’s Play and he was in Goa to see our project and share ideas with us.
Both Stuart and Akihide were very generous with their time and music. To make the most of our visitors time, Child’s Play organised two ‘Meet the Woodwind’ events. The children at Hamara School were delighted to see and touch these new instruments.
Who knows, this may inspire one of the kids to take up the bassoon or the clarinet! We sure hope so!
Next – Meet the Woodwinds @ Casa da Moeda
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“Bahut Lucky hain!”
Irfan is one of our more keen violin students in the Child’s Play (India) Foundation music project at Hamara School.
I was driving him to a private lesson with Sanya Cotta, an extremely gifted Goan-origin violinist who now studies and works in Germany, and regularly coaches young children there herself.
On an impulse, I asked Irfan in my pidgin Hindi: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“Doctor!”, he answered, without missing a heartbeat.
“Why?”
“Because I want to help the poor. I’ll treat them for free when I’m a doctor”.
We discussed it further. How would he make a living if he worked for free?
He had thought of that. He’d charge the rich, and that would be enough to live on.
And how would he be able to tell who could pay and who couldn’t? I didn’t understand this answer verbatim, but he seemed confident he could make the distinction.
“And what will happen to your violin playing?” I asked.
“If I hadn’t thought of being a doctor, I’d want to be a violinist,” he replied.
“But you can be both, you know. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”
I explained how several doctors around the world are such passionate players and lovers of music.
“I’m a doctor, and I play violin and viola”, I told him.
“Bahut lucky hain aap”, he responded, with a lot of feeling.
You are very lucky.
We drove the rest of the distance in silence. I don’t know what thoughts were in Irfan’s head, but I mentally thanked him for pointing out to me what a blessed life I’ve had so far.
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And now…. Keyboard!
On 8 August 2012, we began keyboard lessons for the kids at Hamara School.
It’s funny how one thing leads to another:
A lot of our recorder students used to enjoy the singing sessions that went along with learning their instrument. They literally begged for more opportunities to sing. So we began choir last month.
We had a little keyboard donated to us, so our choir teacher Jean Kalgutkar began to use that in her sessions. That sparked off a flurry of interest in that instrument as well. It turned out that at least one of the children had a miniature keyboard at home, and was trying to play it on their own.
And Providence played a hand as well. I had met Dominic Pereira (seated at the keyboard in the pictures) in another connection quite recently, and he was recommended by others to me as well.
So now we have him teaching our kids keyboard.
It opens up fresh possibilities. I look forward to the day our choir can be accompanied at the keyboard or piano by one of the kids themselves. And why not violin(or viola/cello)-piano, voice-piano, piano trios and quartets?
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Patricia Rozario at Hamara School
We were delighted and honoured to have internationally-acclaimed soprano Patricia Rozario visit our children at Hamara School on 29 July, to hear our fledgling choir.
It’s an initiative that is barely a few weeks old, and we are grateful to the indefatigable Jean Kalgutkar for giving us her time, energy and enthusiasm to set it up and keep it going.
Ms. Rozario was delighted to find that quite a few of the children had really lovely voices, and could pitch notes quite well.
She worked with the kids and really got them going, with vocal exercises and warm-ups!
She gave us a few pointers on working with the children to utilise their “head” voices, and promised to come back to check on their progress and work with them! 🙂
We also had a boy soprano, young Rahul Lobo from Dubai come over that afternoon to sing for them. He’s an amazing talent that had come to Ms. Rozario’s attention just a few days before.
He gave our children a very good idea of what this “head” voice” is all about. He and his mum visit Goa almost every month, so we gratefully accepted his offer to spend some time wit our kids on his visits!
And as if all that wasn’t excitement enough for one afternoon, we also had a lady from the local press (camera slung round her neck in the pic) come round to do a feature on Child’s Play (India) Foundation!
The kids really have so much potential, it really gives us so much positive energy!
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The Sound of Music : We have a choir!
We are delighted to announce that we now have a girls choir led by the very experienced and capable Jean Kalgutkar. Our first lesson at Hamara School took place on Monday.
Jean has been training choirs for decades and still teaches at the Kala Academy. We are delighted to have her on board and look forward to hearing our girls sing in harmony!
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Reshma gets a viola
Reshma is one of the girls in our violin project at Hamara School. She successfully auditioned for the Kala Academy last December , where she is now studying viola with Elvina Fernandes. Elvina helped Reshma choose a new instrument last week.
Thank you, Musequality for enabling this purchase!
