Behind the scenes at the Brillante Piano Festival 2024

Pianists Tazim Sheikh and Shantanu Patel share what happens behind the scenes at the Brillante Piano Festival

No art form is replete without opposing genres coming together to produce a contrasting, but grand effect, bridging any differences artistes may have beyond their love for art. At the recently concluded Brillante Piano Festival, Bengaluru saw pianists from all over the world come together to present classical, jazz, pop and other musical genres.

Tazim Sheikh, winner of the Brillante Piano Festival 2021 prize in the jazz category, expressed the importance of learning a musical instrument. “Learning a musical instrument is essential for a young child as it can help one regulate emotions; an instrument also has the potential to build motor skills by increasing hand-eye coordination. Besides all this, the healing powers of music are well known,” he says.

At the festival this year, Tazim played ‘Dwam,’ the title track of his album DWAM, and ‘Ether’ — both an unique amalgamation of Indo-classical and jazz music.

The Brillante Piano Festival is perhaps the only piano festival held in India, that not only invites experts from across the world, but also child prodigies. Mantra Upadhyay, a 12-year-old pianist from Gujarat, was the winner of the classical category and runner up in the jazz category this year. 

“I love that the Brillante Piano Festival is open to all cultures, and multiple genres of music. Additionally, there were choir and string quartet performances too this year,” says Shantanu Patel, winner of the Brillante Piano Festival 2019 prize in the classical category. Shantanu was also on the jury panel this year and performed Beethoven’s Les Adieux and Claude Debussy’s Pour le Piano for his audience.

The festival welcomes almost as many genres of piano music as there are world cultures. Talking about his specific genre, Tazim explained, “You need to listen to a lot of jazz to truly understand it, especially since it’s not in our blood. The whole philosophy and an understanding of jazz will not come unless one has been in the culture of repression that it is born out of. However, if you delve into the music and listen to it long enough, you can start learning jazz, even though the sound of it is complicated and layered.”

Jazz is an incredibly improvisational genre. “The best part about jazz is that you never know what is going to happen next,” added Pradyumna Singh Manot, one of India’s jazz maestros and a juror at the festival. “It’s like a blind date with fate,” he says.