On a musical Odyssey

All the way from Paris, Sonia Weider Atherton has come to Thiruvananthapuram, where the cellist performed L’ Odyssée de l’Inde (The Odyssee in India) organised as part of the Indo-French cultural exchange festival ‘Bonjour India’ organised by Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum.

She has plans to travel across India and take her Odyssey to Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi and Udaipur. She says, her Odyssey is built with adventures like the story of Ulysses. “It begins with a melody like your first words and ends with the wave sounds of a lullaby,” says Sonia.

She met her team mates Akhil J. Chand, the vocalist, and John Anthony, the guitarist, through the director of Alliance Francaise. From Paris, she has brought sound engineers Frank and Julie. She has created the sound track of Odyssey with Frank. 

The event announcement says classical cello with guitar and Carnatic music. So, is that a coming together of Western and Indian music? “Well, it is not even Western. Music is so much closer than we think. You can recognise the music from Egypt and Syria and feel the same all around. Because when people travel all around the world, they have their music inside which travels along. Odyssey is wider than Western and Indian music.”

Her interest in music began as a little girl. Remembering the beginning, Sonia says, “I liked the sounds more than the words. Cello is more like a human voice which can sing. You can play very low notes and high notes with its bow unlike the small bow of a violin. My first performance was the Vivaldi concerto.” 

She got trained at Russia in the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, one of the greatest music schools in the world where all instruments are being taught. 

“Russians have a great knowledge of string playing. When I landed in Russia, it was very cold and I lived with so many students. Practice was very difficult, but our teacher was very demanding and we had to practice the whole week. However, she knew what students would choose and kept the road open for them.”

Having performed all over the world for the past four decades, she considers art as a mix of ancient knowledge with the present. 

“It helps us survive, live and be happy when it is linked to the world. Music transcends everything. I have worked with people in France, with the immigrants — the women and men who do not have a right to stay in the country.  For them, life is not easy. But my music meets all these people, not just the ones who have heard music all their lives,” she says.