Combining her twin passions of music and sports

Pianist Marialena Fernandes shared some thoughts on the forthcoming concert:

What made you choose the K595 as the concerto to perform at this concert?

I have performed many of Mozart’s Piano Concertos, this particular one appeals to me especially, having been composed as the last one in the year of his death, and its form and methodical structure leading to the inspiration Mozart had on Beethoven.

Tell us about your “Quest for Passion” ….particularly, the project combining music and sports?

I started this project in 2015, with the intention of sharing my passion and my life as a musician not only with students in Europe, where I have been living for the past 40 years, but also to initiate an intense interaction between European and Indian Talent.

This includes global thinking, education on a broader level, breaking barriers, building bridges through the joy of risk-taking, experimentation and freedom of artistic thought.

“Sport and Music” was a development which resulted from a simple game of football played during this project in 2015 by my colleagues from Vienna with kids from Mangalore. Ever since, we try and follow this up every year

This will be the 4th year in succession, most of it taking place in Goa, Bangalore and Mangalore.

You are performing some concerts in India before you travel to Sri Lanka. Tell us something about that project.

The theme of this project is sharing and exchanging. I bring musicians from Europe to play with talented youth in India and hold workshops with socially neglected groups. There is description, explanation of musical ideas also with educators and students from both parts of the world.

You were born in India and now live in Vienna. Vienna is known as the City of Music – more famous composers (including Mozart & Beethoven) have lived there than in any other city – did that have any bearing on your decision to study and live there?

I was very fortunate to be a Prize Winner at the Bicenntenial Beethoven Competition organised by the Goethe Institute in India, which offered me a scholarship to go first to Munich, then to Vienna, ever since the City of my Dreams.