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Graduate Diploma alum Meera Arora takes home first prize in the Vocal Category of the Con Brio Competition 2024.

Meera Arora is a Western Classical Singer and Music Educator based in New Delhi. Having completed her undergraduate degree at the Miranda House, University of Delhi, she achieved her Postgraduate Diploma (Voice & Opera) with Distinction at Trinity Laban this year. She studied under the guidance of professors Sophie Grimmer and Panaretos Kyriatzidis.

Meera’s opera roles at Trinity Laban included Anne Truelove from Stravinky’s The Rake’s Progress, Erste Dame from Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Chorus (Soprano) in Errolyn Wallen’s opera Dido’s Ghost, and Idele in Phantom of the Soap Opera – A Musical Dramedy with the Lyric Ensemble of Delhi. Her other recent performances include a vocal recital at All Saints Church (Milton Keynes) and Queen Elizabeth Children’s Hospital (Woolwich), Soprano I chorus of The Opera Maker’s The March of Progress at Holy Sepulchre Church (Holburn). She was also part of the Swedish song project led by Lars Fischer and The Lost Women Project by Yaashvi Kedia. She was a finalist in the Olga Jules’ Young Musician of the Year Award in 2022.

The fourteenth Con Brio Competition took place at the end of August at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai. Con Brio 2024 presented a programme of works by iconic classical composers written during their youth. The final featured select performances of young musicians from a total of 112 applicants. The Competition Suite comprised three categories: Piano, Violin/Viola, and Voice, the latter of which Meera won.

Since its inaugural event in June 2010, the Con Brio Piano Festival and Competition has been annually presented jointly by Furtados and Parvesh Java, in collaboration with the National Centre of the Performing Arts. It began as and remains a tribute to John Gomes, without whose dedication and commitment to western music and especially music education in India would not have progressed and thrived as it did in the latter half of the twentieth century.

The Furtados Group and the Gomes family have long championed the cause of Western music development. While the Con Brio Festival has been the most significant event in the annual calendar, other projects include outreach programmes, event collaborations and sponsorships, education projects, seminars and workshops, and teacher support and professional development.

With the creation of the Furtados Con Brio Foundation, Con Brio embarks on a new chapter in its evolution and provides the group with many further avenues of collaboration, support and outreach within the music community of the country. The Foundation very much continues to remain a testament to John Gomes and will further his legacy and already innumerable contributions.