Christina McEwan
IT’S been several years since pianist Pallavi Mahidhara has been in Cape Town – she last gave a recital tour back in 2012 – and she is happy to be back but, horrors, Johannesburg is her favourite city (for its climate)! Ms Mahidhara knows Johannesburg well as her parents were based there from 2006 until April this year, and she visited it as often as she could.
She’s here to play the Second Rachmaninov Piano Concerto with the CPO and Perry So in its season opener at The City Hall on October 22.
Pallavi Mahidhara is bringing a new interpretation to her performance of the concerto. “I last performed it in 2009, and since then I have spent the last five years studying with the great Russian pianist and teacher, Dmitri Bashkirov in Madrid. His influence on me has been vital, and has helped me to develop much more of a Russian perspective. I feel very privileged and honored to have had the chance to work so closely with Professor Bashkirov, and the intensity of his character and musical ideas have left me feeling more closely connected to Russian music. Anytime I see a photo of Rachmaninov’s face, I feel that it is a perfect representation of his music. Both can be sometimes quite severe and restrained, yet always full of inner beauty and life.”
The Russian masters are not all that Ms Mahidhara feels passionate about.
“Being Indian, I love Indian classical music as well. I am always trying to find a way to connect western and eastern classical music. In 2004, I performed in India for the first time and I premiered a piece for solo piano Fantasia and Fugue in C by the internationally revered film score composer, Vanraj Bhatia.”
“Bhatia, who is trained in Indian music, has also studied Western composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and Howard Ferguson in London, and is widely acclaimed for his collaborations with Indian Art Film Director, Shyam Benegal. In this large-scale piano work, the fantasy is based on the Indian epic, Mahabharata, while the fugue is based on an Indian raga (scale), Puriya Dhanashri.”
She has performed the piece many times in Europe and America, always to great acclaim for the piece as well as her performance.
“It is a very descriptive piece, full of drama, expressivity, and emotions.” It can be heard on her website (www.pallavimahidhara.com)
Last year she worked with the Indian violinist Dr. L Subramaniam in Bangalore, where she learned more about the basis and structure of Indian classical music.
“It opened my mind to the similarities between western and Indian classical music, and I look forward to exploring this genre more in depth throughout my career.”
Not that she has a lot of time. Since taking 2nd place in the Geneva International Competition last year, she has barely stood still. She performed the First Rachmaninov Concerto in The Grand Hall of the Philharmonie in St Petersburg in May, in awe of those who had played there before… Rachmaninov himself, Prokofiev, for instance.
She played in a recital in Berlin, where she now lives, completing her master’s degree at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule with Eldar Nebolsin, once a pupil of Bashkirov; she played at the National Auditorium in Madrid, and she played with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra (JPO) in March, amongst a smattering of performances in the States.
She made her debut in South Africa with the JPO in 2008, independently of her 4th Prize, Audience Prize and Prize for the Best Romantic Concerto in the UNISA International Competition, and has been back almost every year to perform in South Africa.
With her sister Radhika, an accomplished cellist who took second prize in the Artscape Competition, now turned banker in Hong Kong, she did four fundraisers for the soup kitchen at St Martins-in-the-Veld in Johannesburg, raising enough money for the volunteers to run the kitchen for the next year. The two sisters are now looking for a charity to help in Hong Kong, where Pallavi makes her recital debut next year.
What’s next? She comes to Cape Town directly from Bergen, Norway where she will have had master classes with Leif Ove Andsnes, following performances in Berlin and Madrid; and post-Cape Town, she will give a performance in the Geneva Competition’s Laureates Festival, with a live recording being made on the Claves Label, and then will go to India for a four-city concert tour.
So for Pallavi Mahidhara, coming to South Africa is almost like coming home.
“Although I never lived here, South Africa was my family’s home for several years, and I have a very strong attachment to it.” And certainly she has played often here – five times with the JPO, her second appearance with the CPO and three times in Durban, along with recitals all over the country.
You can hear Ms Mahidhara’s artistic versatility and musical insight on October 22, at The Cape Town City Hall at 8pm. Also on the programme with Perry So on the podium, are Three Orchestral songs on poems by Ingrid Jonker by Bongani Ndodana Breem and the Symphony no 7 in C-sharp minor by Prokofiev.
l Book: 0861 915 8000, www.com puticket.com, or Artscape Dial-a-Seat 021 421 7695. Information: luvuyo@cpo.org.za