In India, there aren’t many opportunities for pianists

There is an Indian talent rising in the West. He is Julian Clef, a rather timid lad from Kerala, with a UK accent, whose fingers can fly across the piano keys, during the course of which mesmerising music is created.
The rather untold story of this youngster, who was in Vizag recently for a concert, reveals the gaping holes in India’s cultural scene.
When Clef’s dexter hands recreated the tunes of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Chopin at the concert here, it was not a just a coincidence. “When he was in school, he had fallen in love with the only piano in our locality, which was two kilometres from our home in Cavadiar. When other boys of his age hit the playground for football, he would rush to Cyril Perrera’s house, for his rendezvous with the instrument. On Sundays, I used to bring him lunch there, because he forgets about his food when he is lost in playing the piano,” said Wilfred George, Julian Clef’s father.
Julian attributes his musical genes to his father. Wilfred himself was an amateur musician, who was so passionate about music that he used to conduct a grand festival called the Bach Festival, on July 28, every year. It was musician Bach’s death anniversary and incidentally, Julian Clef’s birthday. It was during one of these festivals that an NRI couple, Dr Celestine and wife Linda John, spotted the talent in Julian and invited him to UK. “This was after my Class X. I was 15 then. I flew to UK and stayed with the couple for a while. They enrolled me in Chetam School of Music in Manchester. I started my formal education in music there, under Murray McLachlan,” says Julian. Later, he went for his bachelors at Royal Northern College of Music, where he is currently pursuing his masters, under the guidance of Dina Parakhina, a Russian musician.
During the course of his education, Julian’s talent was recognised, and he was chosen to play with many an eminent musician at prestigious music festivals. “One of the memorable concerts was when I played at Buckingham Palace in 2010. Prince Edward was a patron of our college and we performed for him. For me, it was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of feeling,” the pianist says.
However, that wasn’t the one concert he would cherish the most. He performed at a concert in Bonn, Germany, the birthplace of none other than Beethoven. “I went on to visit the Beethoven Haus, where the legendary pianist lived. It was a small house, and in one of the rooms, his piano was displayed. We were not supposed to touch it, because over the years, it has become so fragile that it would powder down with one touch. But there was a replica of it next to it, on which I played. It was like a pilgrimage,” he recollects.
By now, Julian Clef has attended scores of concerts in Europe, America, Germany, Norway and Australia. He has performed at Wig MarkHall and St Martin in the field at London and has attended the Dvorak International Music Festival at Prague, Czech Republic, where Indian musicians like Subin Mehta participated. He has conducted concerts across India too, shuttling between Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and many more.
However, there is a flip side to Julian’s story, which is not all that rosy. “I am struggling to support his education in the West. I had written several times to the ministry of culture and made several representations to politicians like MP Shashi Tharoor. I once wrote to Abdul Kalam when he was the President, who ordered the department of arts and culture to look into the matter. The department sent me a meagre amount of `25,000. And said they will support his education only if he learns the Indian music,” said Wilfred George, who shot off a reply saying that would spoil the music and the instrument, because piano is not an Indian instrument and is most suitable for Westerna music.
In Manchester, Julian Clef’s fans have started a fund-raiser programme, which is currently taking some burden off his father’s shoulders. Julian seems undaunted by all this hoopla doing the rounds. He wears that distant look in his eyes though, which is a rarity, found only in these extremely talented ones. When quizzed about his dreams, he said, “I want to do more concerts in the West. In India, there are not many patrons or opportunities for pianists, like in the West. So, I want to be there, learn more, get deep into it.”