‘If I can do something with my music, I will’
Pic by M,A. Pushpa Kumara
“It is always special for me to come to Sri Lanka, every time,” says celebrated pianist Shani Diluka. “But this time was even more so because it was the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.” Performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.23 in A major (K.488) with Colombo’s Chamber Music Society orchestra at the Lionel Wendt Theatre on Tuesday, December 6, the juxtaposition of physical grace and power she displayed with was extended to the connection she made with the orchestra.
It was during the pandemic that the spiritual power music holds over humanity made itself clear to Shani. And this spiritual aspect of her craft is her guiding principle, she tells the Sunday Times, when we meet her the next afternoon. “In the end, music is about the values of humanity… Sorrow, joy, pain, eternity, death. These are all things that each of us has experienced. It is a mix of the composer’s life, the performer’s life and the life experience of the audience. This is the core of music, and it is magical because at some point all our souls are connected and these feelings are universal.”
Coming to Sri Lanka in February 2020 with other artists for a programme, within four days when informed that the airport would close, and that they should return home immediately, the others left, but Shani decided to stay back as she expected things to settle within a few weeks. ‘A few weeks’ flowed into three months.
“I had never got a break like this before,” Shani says. She enjoyed her time being home, working with her childhood piano and getting a good rest after years of touring. As the pandemic persisted, Shani started getting requests from people around the world to share recordings of her playing at home. “I realized music is something so deeply needed. It is something the world needs especially in difficult times because music is the best thing to bring people together.”
Back home in Monaco after the break, still unable to perform due to pandemic restrictions, in March 2021 Shani was invited to join a team of artists to perform for and work with inmates at the Meaux Prison outside Paris once a month. The ‘WATCH’ project, spanned a year and a half, culminated in an acclaimed performance of musical theatre, watched by an audience of 2,000 made up of the prisoners’ families, musicians, the public and dignitaries.
“The prisoners were onstage with a guard of police officers surrounding them,” Shani recalls, her eyes welling up with tears, “and I thought about how they’re onstage with all these people and the same night they have to go to their prison cells and be alone again. It was a good opportunity for them, but it was also heartbreaking because they didn’t want to go back.”
The project was a huge success. “For me it was a big lesson on humanity,” Shani says. A second cycle of the project, spanning three years, is set to start in September 2023.
Shani has also been working with autistic children these past two years, playing for them when they visit her home and keeping in touch online with listening-and-creating exercises weekly. “It has a deep impact,” she says with conviction. “They are much more expressive and creative when they listen to music. This is something that is very important to me as I like to be useful, to help make this world a bit better.” Shani reaches out to children whenever possible, be it by reserving 100 seats for children from the slums of Mumbai for them to see her perform, or helping provide music scholarships for children in France.
“If I can do something with my music, I will do it.”
“I have got so much in Monaco and I have so much to give back what I received… I learnt from the best classical classical music masters in the world and to come back to Sri Lanka and give back is a wonderful feeling.”
The difference between the two cultures of her identity - Monaco where she was born and raised and Sri Lanka where she spent most of her holidays – is something that Shani always “wondered about”. “How is it that on the same planet there is such a difference in life?” Speaking French and Sinhala with the same fluency, she is grateful for the juxtaposition of the two cultures in her life. “I am so happy that my parents had that spirit of giving me cultural roots in Sri Lanka, and I’m also so happy that Monaco gave me the opportunity to be a musician at this high level.”
It is safe to say she would probably have made a very different life for herself if born in any other place. “My parents’ love for music is general: they listen all the time, but they didn’t know much about classical music and neither of them plays any instrument,” Shani explains. They most certainly had no plans of her becoming a musician. When aged five, she was the top performer among ten children in all of Monaco selected for special musical training, they first refused the offer.
In time Shani’s parents were convinced that their daughter would have the opportunity to pursue a regular education alongside an intensive music programme, and at a wee six years old, the prodigy embarked on her journey of dedicating her life to classical music and the piano. “From the age of 19 I knew my life would be completely dedicated to music,” she says. “I knew this was my life.”
From the Academie de Musique in Monaco, Shani went on to the National Conservatory of Nice, the Paris Conservatory and the prestigious Lake Como International Piano Academy in 2005. Making her TV debut at the age of nine, she debuted with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Nice and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Sri Lanka at 15. At the Paris Conservatory, Shani was awarded the Superior Diploma of Music and won the Prix Daniel Magne for 2001. Her career since has been studded with awards and accolades; in November 2018 Shani was named a Knight of the Order of Cultural Merit of Monaco, and in November 2022, appointed to the rank of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters of France.
Last week’s performance in Colombo marked the first time Shani conducted an orchestra from the piano. “It was a challenge for me,” she says, adding that conducting from the piano was also Mozart’s way of doing things. The usual experience of being conducted through a concerto is “more inspiration”, as she listens to the orchestra during moments of silence for the piano. Having to switch between playing the piano and conducting made the performance very “intense”. “When I am conducting, I am taking them on the journey with me. It is much more active and makes it harder to play.”
The difficulty of the task was nevertheless completely hidden to the audience for she commanded her stage, her instrument and her fellow performers that night. “I gave energy to each of the instruments, and they reflected it back to me, like a mirror.”
From Sri Lanka, Shani travels to India and Bangladesh completing an intense three-week tour before a well-deserved break for Christmas. Soon after, she will give a recital at London’s Wigmore Hall for live broadcast by the BBC.
Her tour programme is planned all through 2024 and she practises a minimum of 2-3 hours a day, no matter where she is. This “time alone” with her piano is part of the moving “ritual” that the artist has created for herself, to stay grounded. Also a published poet who writes in airport transit and when jetlagged, she says, “Poetry is a part of my meditative moments.”
Shani Diluka is billed to return to Sri Lanka for a performance of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 on July 8, 2023.
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