Scientists find joy in the art of making classical music

When they have put away their stethoscopes, telescopes and voltmeters, they sit down at a piano, pick up a violin or belt out a song.

Sometimes they meet at monthly classical music evenings or even put on a concert together. But much of their time away from science is spent within the walls of their homes practising their instruments or warming up their voices.

They are a new breed of musicians whose passion for music is as deep as their love of science: Paul Nduati, 22, a third-year medical student, Brian Sempele, a fourth-year electrical engineering student, and Elizabeth Njoroge, a trained pharmacist who branched out into classical music.

Most musicians are people who have been formally trained and have grown up playing an instrument or two.

For the three scientists, music offers a release from the rigours of molecules and magnetic fields. But it is their accounts of how they find time for what they love and what one says “reaches deep in my soul” that fascinate.

Mr Nduati is a pianist and loves the instrument very much. He manages to spend a few hours practising each day, but he spends most of his time in the paediatric ward of Kenyatta National Hospital.

“I am studying for a degree as a doctor but would love to have one in music as well,” said the young man who is as comfortable talking about a musical concept as he is about his medical work.

As a teenager, he was a whiz at mathematics, but he hardly thought that could be related to music. Albert Einstein, the legendary physicist, was said to be a competent violinist and great fan of classical music.

When he came home from school, instead of joining his friends to play football in the neighbourhood playground, he was confined to the sitting room to practice piano much against his wishes. But his family had a tradition of nurturing musical talent.

Everyone in his family was a musician, and on several occasions the house resembled a small studio as family members gathered in the sitting room to sing hymns.

“I was harassed into playing the instrument,” he said. “I had to sit down and play the piano while my age mates were busy playing football outside.”

The family didn’t own a TV set until he was seven, and his mother, who played the piano and the violin, encouraged her children to develop an interest in music. On Christmas Day and other special occasions the family would gather to sing hymns.

When he joined Form One at Alliance High School, he stopped taking lessons at home, and there were no “adequately trained music teachers” at the school. But on the first Sunday at school, students gathered in the chapel, and the organist asked whether any of them played instruments.

Apparently, Mr Nduati was the only student who could play the piano.

“The organist told me I could play the organ when he left,” said the musician-medical student whose favourite piece is Minuet in G by Ludwig von Beethoven. It was a challenge for the young man as no one told him how to use the pedals.

Sunday services

Dedicating his lunch hours and Saturday afternoons to practising the organ, he eventually played it at the school’s Sunday services.

These days he gets together with other musicians to play classical music on weekends. He has little time for pop music, which he says “appeals to the evil man.”

Brian Sempele’s mother was the music director at St Mary’s School, and he grew up loving music and playing with musical toys. By the time he was a teenager, he could play the trumpet, the flute and the violin.

“I love the violin because it produces a good sound that reaches deep into my soul,” he said. He managed to practice three hours a day in primary and secondary school, but these days a taxing schedule only permits an hour.

A fan of American R ‘n B musician India Arie, Mr Sempele says his engineering lessons have patterns that resemble his musical life.

His room is like a little studio, a sanctuary where he finds time to play the violin or the trumpet away from the university hustle and bustle.

“Music doesn’t interfere with my study life. I can manage; there is time for everything,” he said.

“Music is all about created stuff; engineering is creating stuff that doesn’t exist. It requires a great deal of discipline; time management is a great deal.”

A few years ago, his dream was to become a pilot because it was “exciting.” At 17, his life was at crossroads, and he was bombarded with doubts about whether to study music or pursue engineering.

He chose the latter, believing he could pursue music as a hobby. Sometimes he has to juggle academics and extra-curricular activities, but music is something he can’t live without.

Every Saturday afternoon he goes to the Kenya Conservatoire of Music on Harry Thuku Road where he plays with the Nairobi Orchestra.

“Both engineering and classical music require you to have an open mind and look at a situation from all angles,” he said. “In music you can look at it from the perspective of a composer.”

Sing and dance

When Elizabeth Njoroge was a child, she would sing and dance around the house, and when she was studying biochemistry at university, she fell in love with classical music.

“It is very much part of who I am. It just makes sense to me and seems to speak the language of my heart,” said the 38-year-old who left the pharmacy to run a classical music company, Art of Music.

“I have never felt more fulfilled, and I hope when I look back at my life in 50 years’ time, it will make sense.”

Today, Ms Njoroge makes a living from classical music and presents Smooth Classics on Capital FM. Through her company she publishes a classical music newsletter and organises classical musical evenings every second Thursday of the month.

“I would love that those who love and appreciate the genre have more opportunities to listen and perform. I would love that more people come to know it, and it somehow changes their life,” she said.

“I hate those closed-minded people who maintain that it is foreign and unAfrican. Art is universal, and if that were the case then our own traditional music would not have crossed our shores, would it?”

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