Pune lad Aditya Deshpande (12) has proved his skills on the pianoforte by winning top honours at the Musiquest national piano festival 2011 held in Pune last November. Musiquest is an all-India piano talent discovery contest presented in an informal and friendly workshop/masterclass format, offering participants the opportunity not only of public performance, but of receiving instruction and certificates from an international panel of judges.

Promoted by the Academy of Music, Pune (est. 1986), Musiquest 2011 drew 164 young pianists between ages five-25 who played a total of 650 compositions during the three-day event of classical and jazz music. The top prize of a Kawai KX 21 upright piano valued at Rs.235,000 and a 50 percent scholarship from the International Institute of Young Musicians, USA in the category of Advanced First Place was awarded to Aditya, a class VI student of Pune’s Symbiosis Primary School for his 15-minute rendition of Sir Sergei Prokofievs Romeo and Juliet.

Aditya started playing the piano at age five when his family was resident in the US. We used to listen to western classical music and since we had a piano at home, we encouraged him to play. His talent really took us by surprise. He reads through books of sheet music like novels, playing compositions in his head before practicing them intensively, says his mother Swati.

When the family headed by V.S. Deshpande, an engineer working with the oil field services giant Schlumberger Gmbh, and his wife Swati, a home-maker, returned to Pune in 2010, they were fortunate in discovering a suitable piano teacher for Aditya in Roxana Anklesaria-Doctor, the founder of the Academy of Music, Pune.

A music graduate of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and a concert pianist and vocalist in her own right with several national performances to her credit, Anklesaria-Doctor has proved an ideal mentor to young Aditya. He is an excellent learner with natural talent. In fact, he has picked up pieces that other students usually do after 14-15 years of intensive coaching, she says.

Not quite decided about a career as a concert pianist, currently the young maestro has limited ambitions. I would love to play with Zubin Mehta’s philharmonic orchestra at Carnegie Hall, New York, says Aditya wistfully. But right now, my immediate task is to improve my handwriting! he laughs.

Huned Contractor (Pune)

Also read: Beneficial outcomes of music education