OMG! It’s the Queen

Drenched to the bone,their hair dripping rainwater and their music sheets flying in the breeze,the choir broke into Britain’s favourite odes to royalty,including Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen. “It had been raining so heavily that,a day before the pageant,we added another song to the list,Singing in the Rain,” says Castellino,with a laugh.

Most of the songs in the selection were familiar to the British members of the choir,so the Indian Castellino made up by putting in extra hours. “I worked on my own and learned all the songs before rehearsals. It’s always helpful when one does one’s homework,” he says. The meticulousness can be traced to his schoolteacher parents,his education at St George’s College,Mussoorie,his achievements as a marathon runner and the fact that he had no training in music until three years ago.

Until 2009,Castellino was an amateur baritone with a secular choir in Mumbai,performing jazz numbers and a few western classical pieces. A Physics graduate from St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai,he was satisfied with his job of four years in analytical software. By all accounts,his life was set. Credit for “finding” him goes to London-based Patricia Rozario,who returns to India every few months to train students in western classical music. In 2010,Castellino applied to RCM,one of the 600 hopefuls from all over the world vying for the 10 places in the college. He made the cut.

One of the first things he saw on entering the RCM campus was an image of King George V,a coincidence. “In 1905-06,my grandmother’s grandfather was a bandmaster for the Indian Army,and he had played for King George V,then the Prince of Wales,” says Castellino. In India,where western classical music is in a nascent phase,the musician realises that “the best way to encourage others to take up western classical music is to do well myself”. “Only when Indians do well will the industry look at us as potential performers,” he says,adding that he often counsels individual performers from states such as Andhra Pradesh through his artistes page on Facebook.

On July 15,Castellino will perform for a concert for Con Brio,a national-level piano contest,in Mumbai. Expect compositions by George Frideric Handel “which are challenging because there’s a lot of ornamentation”. Will he accept a request for God Save the Queen?