He may be more commonly associated as a keyboard player, but for 21 year old Ian de Noronha, the organ wasn't his first choice of music instrument. “ I actually began playing the mouth organ first at the age of four. My grandfather used to play the mouth organ and it really fascinated me. Being his first grand child I spent a lot of time with him and he started teaching me to play it too. In fact, at the age of six I played on Doordarshan and All India Radio,” says Noronha, who was soon after enrolled for violin classes at Kala Academy. Not done with experimenting with music instruments, Noronha then decided to start learning the viola about six years ago at Kala Academy following which he was part of a few orchestras including the Indian National Youth Orchestra and the Bombay Chamber Orchestra. Dabbling with the keyboard was something that Noronha decided to pursue by himself. “ I sort of self taught myself how to play the keyboard and it was only a couple of years ago that I actually got serious about it,” he says. Noronha then joined the gospel band First Aid and more recently he has also become a member of the young band The Funk Factory. “This is a young group with members in the age group of 18-22 and we have had a few shows at the Jardim Garcia de Orta as part of the Original Bandstand Project and play a lot of jazz, blues and funk,” he says. Apart from this, about a couple of months ago Noronha also joined the band XSCT, a newly formed four member pan India band. A progressive jazz pop rock band, XSCT comprises of Vijay Xavier from Pune on the guitar, Vishal Singh from Assam on the drums, Arnab Sengupta from Bangalore on the vocals and Ian de Noronha on the keyboard. “ XSCT stands for Xavier Spontanous Combustion Theory because when musicians meet and jam up, it is sort of like a spontanous combustion and Xavier is the main meber behind the band,” reveals Noronha. Speaking about how the musicans from different cities came to be together, Noronha states that Vijay and Arnab used to be in a band together for quite a few years called Multiple Personality Disorder. “ Vijay had some songs that we was looking to record and he met up with Vishal who is a music producer based in Mumbai who liked what he heard. Later, Vijay happened to be in Goa for a church event where I was playing in the choir and asked me if I would like to come onboard,” says Noronha. Their first EP consisting of six songs will be released at 6 Assagao, Assagao on July 4 and will later be available online on itunes, cd baby and band camp. These tunes as described by the band will be innovative and experimental songs/pieces with harmonic progressions borrowed from Jazz and Funk music.
Noronha admits that he has also been working on an EP of his own along with a two musican friends of his from Goa and hopes to complete it sometime soon. He however confesses that it is difficult to find support for new music here in Goa. “ Everybody wants DJ music today but if it's a live band, there's not as much interest. Today it is easy to make music just with the laptop but live music can never be replaced,” he states, adding that this situation is indeed sad as Goa has a lot of “crazy talent”. “ However at the same time Goa is also all about attracting tourists and to make them happy musicans play what these tourists want to hear,” he says.” We need to realise that just playing covers will not get you anywhere -neither in terms of furthering your skills nor in terms of improving the music scene in Goa.” Apart from music, Noronha, is also a photographer and has won first place for a state photography competition and been nominated among the top 10 for Photoflare an international photography competition.
