Let’s produce harmony this year!

Just a month ago, seventy-three voices, including mine, and an orchestra of thirty-one raised their voices, violins, violas, cellos, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, French horns, trumpets, trombones, and a timpani,making glorious music! There must have been a smile on Mozart’s face somewhere in the heavens as he heard Indians from Mumbai, Chennai and Sri Lanka, and musicians from the former states of the Soviet Union, soloists from Italy, all blending their talents together to form melodious harmony!

Not once did a tenor from India turn to another from Sri Lanka, or a soprano from Mumbai to one from Chennai, or soloist from India to an Italian and say, “Hey, that’s not how we sing here!”

Instead, together they produced divine harmony!

Music from around the world sounded the same: Voices sang same notes, same way! Music scores had same print, similar notations, quite often same numbered page.

How unifying, the power of music!

And as my ears still hear the awesome voices singing Mozart’s Requiem and his Coronation Mass, the instruments sensationally resounding in the auditorium, as my eyes still see the petite figure of conductor Coomi Wadia, producing divine harmony with such a diverse group, I ask but one question, “Why can’t it be so with the world?”

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