Mathieson Music School

The Mathieson Music School, in a village on the edges of Calcutta, provides the children with tuition in all subjects but has a particular focus on music, in both Western and Indian traditions.

The children at the school are selected on a basis of need, either because they are orphans or come from destitute, illiterate and often emotionally disturbed backgrounds.

Musical training not only furnishes the children with a way of expressing themselves, but offers them the means of life-long employment: the flourishing Indian film industry, military establishments, hotel and entertainment sectors are all crying out for Indians literate in Western music. A trained musician has an earning potential 2 or 3 times that of the average Indian school leaver, and the majority of Mathieson ex-pupils have obtained work solely because of the musical skills acquired at the school. For more information about the school, visit their website.

The founder of the school, Anup Biswas, kindly welcomed Ishirini to the school in April 2011. In collaboration with Anup and the Director of Music, Dipok Sapui, Ishirini developed an innovative programme of music celebrating European and Bengali culture through the web of influences of Tagore. The culmination of the programme was a specially commissioned piece out of the mouths of children, incorporating a traditional Tagore song sung by the Mathieson School children, alongside  contemporary choral writing sung by Ishirini which was sung in An Offering of Songs in St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata.