Delight in his glory: An evening with piano maestros Samuel King, Albert Kanken, Jenny He

Our Reporter

Dimapur, May 16 (EMN): Crown centre for Music and Creative Arts a music department of Golden Crown Theological College in Dimapur in collaboration with Task Force for Music and Arts (TaFMA) has announced an exciting opportunity for pianists in town – “Piano Master class and Concert” with Samuel King from Singapore, Albert Kanken and Jenny He from China.

The event dubbed as Piano Master class and concert will be a two-day event starting off with a concert which will be free entry on May 23 2022 at 4:00 pm. On May 24 a master class from 9 am to 12 noon will be held at the Golden Crown Theological College, the Music Director Avoni Odyuo said. “Nurturing musicians for the churches and schools in Nagaland and Northeast has been the vision of Crown Centre and capacity building is a prime focus of TaFMA – and with this partnership we are able to provide free access to both the concert and master class,” she expressed.

The concert on May 23 will be held at Town Baptist Church Dimapur with the theme, ‘Delight in His Glory,’ while majority of the pieces would be classical. This is because the performer’s sole intention is to offer their talent to God alone and delight in him alone, she said.

The music director acknowledged that classical concerts and performances are rare in Nagaland unlike other musically and infrastructure endowed countries where music enthusiasts can chose to watch a few performances daily.

“We have yet to reach that stage but to get there the mass has to develop the taste and habit of attending such events – and without this support it becomes difficult for event management groups, music schools and colleges to regularly offer such concerts and shows especially when there’s a lot of commitment and investment in terms of time, skills, infrastructure, co-ordination etc going into putting up a single program”.

Odyuo has encouraged every pianist to take advantage of the master class as having an internationally accomplished pianist willing to invest in our Naga musicians and build our skills without charging an exorbitant rate is an opportunity hard and rare to come by.

Also, she emphasised that the reason behind the concert and master class, was because of the many talented pianists blooming in Nagaland who have reached the threshold beyond which finding a mentor or teacher becomes difficult or non-existent. She also pointed out that there was so much more room for growth and improvement and only once we go out into the world outside Nagaland we realise there was so much more we could have learned and grown in Nagaland had we been given the opportunity.

The current musicians, she acknowledged, are blessed because the pioneering musicians and schools have been exposed to the need for a holistic musical development, but the momentum for growth must not stop there.

“Naga musicians are blessed with the support and vision of TaFMA whose primary focus is to develop the skills, learning infrastructure, processes and resources of the music colleges, schools and individual musicians. Their support in this project has enabled us to offer the piano master class as well as the concert for free so that anyone willing to enhance their musician journey isn’t hampered by finances” acknowledges Odyuo.