Opera 101: Appreciating the Art Form

Mark Troop, pianist, broadcaster and writer, is the founder of The Chamber Music Company, a creative performance group. As a solo pianist, he recorded Beethoven for BBC Radio 3, but soon branched into chamber music and song, founding the Chamber Music Company (CMC) with his wife, soprano Patricia Rozario, in the 1990s. The first of their festivals was the CMC Summer Solstice, which fused classical, new music and jazz and became the Ronnie Scott’s of Classical Music (The Guardian). The Latin American Roadshow was the live version of a ground-breaking series of BBC recordings exploring Spain, Portugal and Latin America through music, literature, mime, dance, performance poetry and art. The CMC Rare Music Series restores unjustly neglected masterworks to public view, and works by Volkmann, Fibich, Rozycki, Jadassohn and even Mozart have been rediscovered. Second Glance Festival – a festival of second performances – was another ground-breaking festival, bringing new music more generally to public attention. It ran twice and toured British new music in South Africa, and is awaiting its own third glance. Mark Troop’s excursion into European culture continued with I’m A Stranger Here Myself, a theatre piece featuring German Jewish cabaret between the wars. Following the China Now Festival in 2008, Mark Troop formed Yin Yang Collective, a collaborative East-west band featuring Chinese, Korean and Japanese instruments, traditions and musicians. Mark Troop’s work in India, with his wife, has been to encourage interest in Western music. Their foundation, Giving Voice Society, trains Indian vocalists of the future and provides opportunities for them both abroad and in India. The group has produces Operas with entire Indian casts, a first in the sub-continent, and generates real excitement about western arts. In 2012 Mark Troop was invited to become a guest lecturer at Goa University, renewed lecturing on music in 2017. In 2015, with Indian pianist Parvesh Java, founded In Good Form, a high-level piano course training the next generation of Indian pianists and teachers.