MUMBAI: The National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, presents the 18th Season of the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), India's only professional orchestra, from February 5th to 21st, 2015.

This season kicks off on February 5th, with SOI Music Director and world-renowned violinist Marat Bisengaliev performing Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1-one of the most famous violin concertos and certainly Bruch's most famous work-as well as excerpts from a new piece by Kazakh composer Yerkesh Shakeyev written for Marat. The programme will also include Beethoven's Symphony No. 2, taking the SOI just one step away from completing all nine of Beethoven's symphonies, which form the cornerstone of orchestral repertoire. The programme will be conducted by Polish conductor Piotr Borkowski.

The highlight of this season will be the first performances in India of the Verdi Requiem, on February 15th and 17th. These performances will see close to 200 people on stage at the NCPA Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, (as well as additional musicians positioned off stage)! The Symphony Orchestra of India will be joined by over 100 singers from the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus from the United Kingdom, and international star soloists: Lucrecia Garcia (soprano), Oksana Volkova (mezzo-soprano), Simon O'Neill (tenor), and Vuyani Mlinde (bass). Each of them has been performing in leading opera houses and with leading orchestras around the world. The performances will be led by renowned Russian conductor Yuri Simonov. Often regarded as Verdi's best ‘opera', and the Verdi Requiem is an extremely powerful and moving work, with the New York Times declaring it to be one that "can stir the blood and grip the imagination like no other work in the concert repertory."

The season will close with an Opera Gala on February 21. In addition to Volkova, O'Neill, and Mlinde, soprano Angel Blue will join the SOI and Maestro Simonov in a programme carefully designed to allow Mumbai audiences to hear the singers in the repertoire for which they are best known. The gala will feature works from some of the best-loved operas by Mozart, Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, and Wagner, amongst others.

In addition to the concerts at the NCPA, this year, the Symphony Orchestra of India will also be opening the music series of the 2015 Kala Ghoda Arts Festival on February 8th at Cross Maidan Garden. This will be the first time the SOI has performed a free, non-ticketed outdoor concert with the entire orchestral forces. The concert will be led by Associate Music Director Zane Dalal, and feature popular classics including the excerpts from Dvo??k's Slavonic Dances, Brahms' Hungarian Dances, Bizet's Carmen Suite, as well as medleys from The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady.

NCPA chairman and founder of the Symphony Orchestra of India Khushroo N. Suntook said, "The SOI's Spring 2015 season is probably one of the most ambitious that we have undertaken thus far. The Verdi Requiem is a grand undertaking and its blazing music is as exciting as it is inspiring. We would especially like to thank the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, who readily agreed to participate in these performances at their own expense. Our performance at the Kala Ghoda festival is another endeavor with which the SOI is trying to reach out to newer audiences who may never have had the opportunity to hear a live orchestra."