Ode to Peace

“Music has no language. We are sure we can communicate the message of peace to audiences across the world with this programme,” said Russian pianist Maria Nemtsova. Nemtsova, along with saxophonist Vitaly Vatulya, violinist Artiom Shishkov and cellist Alexander Ramm had presented a western classical music concert in the city the other day. The Russian Cultural Centre in Trivandrum, organised the concert as a commemorative event to mark the 70th anniversary of the Second World War.

Maria Nemtsova and Vitaly Vatulya, whose piano-saxophone concert has coveted attention as a remarkable ensemble in chamber music, had conceived the ‘Music for Peace’ programme as a travelling concert a few years ago. Asked whether it is an anti-war campaign, Nemtsova clarified that the envisaged the programme as “non-political”. “Certainly there are wars and attacks happening around the world. Our programme though has no political undertones writ into it. It is about peace. And the kind of peace we emphasise on is the inner peace within human beings. We do hope that our music will transport people to a world of inner peace,” she said.

The group conducted a workshop for students and teachers of western classical music at the Russian Cultural Centre. The workshop, dedicated to the 175th birth anniversary of Pyotor Tchaikovsky, turned out to be an eye-opener for the Russian musicians.

“We are quite surprised by the amazing amount of talent we see here. It was a joy to work with them,” said Nemtsova.  

An international charitable project, ‘Music for Peace’ is a platform that unites professional musicians and music teachers. Classical music concerts and educational master-classes are organised across the world  the world as part of the project. The programme takes interest in organising events places dealing with post-conflict phases and zones devastated by acts of terrorism or natural disasters.

Nemtsova and Vatulya said that they were delighted to be working Artiom Shishkov and Alexander Ramm this season.

“These guys do a lot of travelling. We are not able to be part of the team in all the tours, but we are glad we got invited for this circuit,” said Shishkov. The Nemtsova-Vatulya duo said they invite musicians to work with them in each season, which is also a learning process.

The current four-member team has already visited Chechnya and North Ossetia of the Russian Federation, Georgia, South Ossetia, Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina among others. The team was on their first ever tour to India.