About the author: Saskia Rao-de Haas is a world-renowned virtuoso cellist, composer, cultural

entrepreneur and educationalist from the Netherlands. She is known as a master performer of Indian
classical music and is the creator of a new instrument: the Indian cello. She created the first complete
music curriculum for Indian music, Sangeet4All, and over 50,000 children have already benefitted from
this. She is the recipient of multiple awards for her trailblazing work in music. She is married to sitar
maestro Shubhendra Rao and they have a 15 year old son Ishaan who is already a pianist in his own right.

An artist without audience…..

When the great Indian musician Tansen was asked why his Guru sage Swami Haridas was a
more proficient musician than himself, he famously answered; ‘ I sing at the court of great
Kings, but my Guru sings in solitude to the Greatest King of All.’ This story is often told to
illustrate the importance of introspection, finding a certain zone or connection within
oneself from which music can flow. I have been thinking about this remark a lot in the last
few months.

The last concert I performed was on my birthday, the 10th of March, in a crowded temple in
Amritsar for a Holi-themed classical music festival. The temple hall was filled with an
engaged and enthusiastic audience. With my first note ‘wah’ sounded from one of the
famous Wadali brothers from the front row. It was a wonderful evening. Little did I realise
that this would be the last applause and interaction with an audience I received for a long
time. We are a family of musicians and we breathe through music. My husband is sitar
maestro Shubhendra Rao, a direct disciple of Ravi Shankar who grew up playing sitar in a
family of musicians. I grew up in the Netherlands in a family immersed in music as well. I
started the cello when I was 7 and during my studies at the conservatory, changed direction
to Indian Classical music on the cello. Our son Ishaan has imbibed both musical cultures
since day 1 of his life. He would feel restless when we would not travel for some time even
as a 3 year-old and would ask when we’d go on an airplane again! He is 15 years old now
and growing as a pianist. Our home is always filled with music. But an artist needs an
audience as well. Unfortunately the ways to describe a good audience in normal times
sounds like a potential Coronavirus hotspot: ‘a packed audience’, ‘people sitting in the
aisles’ ‘the auditorium was filled to the brim’. Not possible right now. All concerts are
cancelled for the foreseeable and perhaps not-so-foreseeable future. So, like everyone else,
we too are at home. Practice is always wonderful and our way to strengthen ourselves. All
three of us start our day practicing for at least 3 hours, Ishaan usually longer. After a good
practice, we are ready for everything else. The crushing reality of the outside world can
enter our home through the filter of our computer screen.

Apart from performing, Shubhendra and I run a music education curriculum to connect
children with Indian classical music in a fun and meaningful way. Sangeet4All. When we are
not practicing music or performing, we work on this. We are passionate about bringing
music, especially Indian classical music, to children so they can benefit from having music in
their lives the way we and Ishaan did. The feedback has been very rewarding. The responses
I receive from parents and children makes all the hard work worth it!

Sangeet4All started with 15 girls in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of Delhi in 2014. The
Sangeet4All program runs in 18 schools in the NCR, Gujarat and Punjab to the great
satisfaction of parents, teachers and schools alike apart from the many outreach programs
we conduct.

After I returned from my concert in Amritsar and realised that the virus could change the
way we teach music for some time, I created online lesson plans for all the schools and now
the Sangeet4All team can teach an entire music program online! Sure, the online medium
has its own drawbacks--- you cannot sing at the same time at different locations because of
the slight delay on any platform, but listening skills, musical mindfulness, concept building
and musical storytelling are super effective. At this time we have to look at the positives and
CAN’S rather than the negatives and CANNOT’S. It takes all our effort to take schools with
us, since it is new to them too and they rather focus on maths, science and English---the
‘real’ subjects, over some frivolous music activities. I feel this is a huge mistake. It is music,
that gives children not only peace of mind, but gives a window to all learning.

Unfortunately arts education is often misunderstood and neglected as a subject. It is

laudable that music is supposed to finally be a part of the curriculum in schools in India, but
unfortunately most schools have no idea of what to do in terms of curriculum planning.
Music teachers come from traditional music families without any idea of the subject music
education or are otherwise trained as performing musicians. There are perfectly planned
music programs available in India: the Irish national curriculum, Royal school of music
London, The Finnish curriculum, that schools turn to in their attempts to correct this, but in
these imported programs there is no connection with India or Indian music. I met someone
who was selling the Kodaly method to schools with songs from North America. In my
understanding, Kodaly was keen on children learning music that is culturally appropriate for
them and high quality classical music to immerse themselves in. In Sangeet4All we try to
honour this beautiful principle. When we translate the Kodaly approach to the Indian
scenario, we get nursery rhymes in Hindi, or other Indian languages since there are over 27
official languages in India, Indian folk music. And we get Indian classical music, a music
tradition that can pride itself on a 3000 year old musical treasure trove. Indian music, North
Indian and South Indian classical music is the music from the ancient temples, the Mughal
courts and Sufi saints. It is the classical music of the concert stage in India. That is where we
wanted to make a change: to provide children with music education that is culturally
relevant, well planned and is fun for children AND teachers.
I have divided the program in 6 units, each with their own children’s’ book, lesson plans and
teacher training. The units are: Dhwani, which means sound and opens children up to the
wonders of sound around them and within them. Vadya, which means musical instrument.
It is the story of Tara the Sitar who lives with her family of string instruments in Vadya. We
are currently creating the soundtrack, stage producton and animated film for Vadya. In Raga
and Tala two children travel to the land of the ragas and meet the personifications of these
Ragas. In Desi the same children travel around India and connect with the rich tradition of
folk music in India. Duniya means world and is the next unit. This book is about world
music from an Indian music perspective. The reader travels around the world
with Surya, Urvashi and Azim. They meet Gerald Wirth, current director of
the Viennese boys’ choir, Bassidi Kone, master Balafone and Dejembe
player from Mali, Gao Hong, Pi’pa player from China and Freddie
Bryant, guitarist and composer from Manhatt an. But: in the book they
meet these great arti sts as children in the process discovering their
music and the musician within them. The last unit is Shastra. Shastra means
revealed knowledge or science. The book is about Indian music history from the Vedas until
music from the Indian film industry and the many styles and genres that are in use today.
We also developed special versions, methods and notations for the Indian straight flute,
Bansi, the ukulele and developed a new instrument: the Swartarang. Apart from this young
learners program, we work with music teachers to set up their choirs and orchestras. Please
write to us if you are interested to involve your students in a (digital) exchange program. We
also help senior students and volunteers set up their own community choirs with ‘Sa Re
Gayein ‘ (which means ‘let’s sing together, but also involves the names of the first three
note names of Indian music, Sa, Re , Ga). We had volunteers from the UK, Australia and the
US to work with various NGO’s here in India as well working on instrumental music and
orchestras. To learn from experts across the globe has always provided us with invaluable
insights to grow our program.

In my research I settled on seven pillars on which we base our content, lesson planning and
assessment model. These are Voice training, Rhythm development, Concept building,
Listening Skills, Musical literacy, Musical behaviour and Instrument playing. Each of these
are worthy of deep research and reflection. In our Voice training, we use as vocal warm-ups
Indian techniques of chanting, yogic breathing combined with ragas and songs from India.
We follow a bilingual approach, as many schools in India do: Hindi and English. It is a
continuing job to ensure that more and more children have access to their musical cultural
heritage and to convince policy makers to do it in a structured, well-planned manner.
Especially now.

So there we are. It is March 2020. No concerts. Schools closed. Something else needed to
happen! We needed to rethink our lives, press some reboot buttons and take the leap of
faith that all will be well again in some time. We firmly believe in the principle ‘so you sow
so shall you reap’ and decided to help others who were in far, far more difficult
circumstances than we are. We decided to organize a benefit concert for health workers
and migrant workers. Thanks to the support of all the artists that performed, we were able
to raise a good amount of money for them. Apart from that, we engage with many other
wonderful inititiatives that artists and organizations take to help the world around us. It is
heart warming to see this and we participate almost daily in these efforts that unite our
communities.

With our Sangeet4All Facebook page, we have organized an online music competition for
children and over 60 children have already posted their talent. There are some brilliant
young singers and some budding musicians who display a lot of enthusiasm, but most of all:
they all love music. It is wonderful to see them enjoy their music. These children embody
the thought that Shubhendra and I always kept as our leading theme: music is the birthright
of every child.

In the same spirit, we now conduct online music summer camps and online music school. It
is a modest, small start with 15 children divided in different groups. But music cannot stop.
We are also looking forward to be with our students again. Until that day, we have to make
the best of what is possible. The good news is that the online medium does open up all
geographic boundaries. I am very happy to announce that we are starting Sangeet4All in the
US, Europe and Australia this summer as well. We have seen that many children, parents
and teachers around the world are looking for quality resources about different musical
cultures and that Indian music in terms of rhythm, voice culture and musical mindfulness
has a lot to offer to everyone. Our wonderful team is ready to ensure a wonderful summer
for all the children that sign up and share the screen to learn about the musical adventures
in the Land of the Ragas of Surya, Azim and Urvashi, the main characters of the books. When
that musical imagination takes flight, we go back to a simpler reality of childlike innocence.
This kind of peace is something we all can use.
So, I have learned many lessons and continue to learn from these challenging times. An
artist without audience is forced to introspect to find that audience within oneself.

To find out more about the music classes and sign up for your free class: write
admin@sangeet4all.