Kohima’s Brillante Piano Festival hits the right notes
This festival carries forward Nagaland’s classical music legacy of unifying people with tunes
Five years after she founded the three-day Brillante Piano Festival in Kohima, Nagaland, Khyochano TCK feels she can finally catch her breath. The fifth edition, which was held at the end of September, had pianists from 18 countries performing and, for the first time, it was held outside of Nagaland. Brillante debuted as a small event in Kohima in 2017 with state sponsorship. Over five years, it has grown as more people, sponsors and organisations chipped in.
“Bengaluru is kind to various forms of arts and culture and they appreciate music," says Khyochano of her decision to widen the festival’s appeal by taking it to South India after holding the first four editions in Nagaland. “From the beginning, we have been very clear with our intent of bringing a community together that can not only foster unity and celebrate music but also have a support system at different levels for the music community to flourish," says Khyochano. With demos, masterclasses, workshops and competitions spanning three days, the festival brought together maestros, prodigies, young people and parents to share their passion for music. As a precursor to the main event , they organised a Street Piano Festival at Church Street. With participants from 18 countries and 16 Indian states, the fifth edition had performances by Lydian Nadhaswaram, Manoj George, Radha Thomas, Marouan Benabdallah and Aman Mahajan, among others.
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Khyochano says “the piano movement in Nagaland"—as she describes the love for the instrument in the state—has been largely women-led. It was the Christian missionaries who brought the piano and western classical music to the region in the 1800s, though Nagaland has a long musical lineage that existed through oral traditions. “Even as we converted to Christianity, the singing never left. It was always inherent," she explains.
The first piano arrived in Mokokchung district, transported on the back of a donkey across the Naga hills, for Ruth Supplee, the wife of the local reverend. “She and the other missionaries started teaching the locals in Kohima. The late Khrieü Sekhose was among her early students," says Khyochano. “I feel like I’m here to pick up the threads left by our visionary grandmothers, and make my contribution."
Khrieü Sekhose (1931-2014) would handwrite music scores since there were few music books back then, and some of these hymns that she transcribed are still sung in churches in the region. Her contemporaries, Margaret Anne Shishak and Nini Lungalang, also contributed to the classical music movement in Nagaland. Shishak, born in 1941 in Washington DC in the US, came to Nagaland with her husband Rev. Tuisem A Shishak in 1973, and they set up the Patkai Christian College a year later. She taught numerous students, and the present-day Margaret Shishak School of Music within the college is named in her honour. Lungalang (1948-2019) is celebrated for her poetry and her role as an English and classical music teacher at Northfield School in Kohima.
Khyochano says that she herself started learning piano at the age of 10 and went on to train at the Biola Conservatory of Music in the US.
After spending more than two decades as a musician and an educator in the US, Singapore, Amsterdam and Laos, she returned to Kohima in 1999. Back home, she felt the need for a platform to teach youngsters the piano as well as give them a launchpad for a career in music.
“The Northeast has been in flux for decades in many aspects—social issues, our independence struggles, the various economic and infrastructural challenges. So, there is always this feeling of not reaching where we aspire. This was a shared feeling among the community, and many Naga youths also lamented over the lack of avenues to express themselves. That is how Brillante was born with the primary aim to offer a platform with pedagogy, performance and a competitive spirit," says Khyochano.
Though the fifth edition in Bengaluru was the first time the festival ventured entirely outside of the Northeast, in 2022, Brillante organised a Street Music Festival at DLF CyberHub in Gurugram. Brillante also began a Specially Abled Musicians (SAM) programme last year.
“(These musicians are) an inspiration for what one can achieve through sheer passion and perseverance," says Khyochano. “A government school team came to watch the SAM programme participants play and by the end, everyone was crying. This is what I think music can achieve—to touch souls in a shared bond," she adds.
From choirs to hymns to modern songs, Khyochano believes the piano has its space even as electronic music evolves rapidly in the region.
“From under-10-year-old prodigies to our older patrons, the shared bonding for music is so strong that it keeps us thriving. This is our fuel," she says.
Simanta Barman is a freelance journalist based in Guwahati, who writes primarily on lived experiences, food and places.
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