Indra
has gained a reputation as an excellent musician with a passion for traditional
liturgy and superb choral performance.
Born in Blackburn, Lancashire, on 8th December 1968, and educated at Queen
Elizabeth's Grammar School, Blackburn, Indra sang with the Blackburn Cathedral
Choir and studied under organist David Cooper. In 1987 he went up to Oriel
College, Oxford, as Organ Scholar, and in 1990 was awarded his Master of Arts in
Jurisprudence - a law degree as security in the event that he could not make his
living from music!
On attaining his Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists he was awarded
the Gerald H Knight Memorial Prize for the highest marks recorded in the
Choir Training Diploma examinations.
From 1990 Indra spent two years as Organist and Master of the Choristers at
Holy Trinity, Coventry, where he also worked for the Friends of Cathedral Music
and was Assistant Chorusmaster to the Warwick University Chorus. He returned to
his home town of Blackburn in 1992 to become Second Assistant Organist at the
Cathedral and also conducted the Renaissance Singers, the leading chamber
choir of the region.
In 1995 he migrated to New Zealand to take up the position of Organist and
Director of Music at the Auckland Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, a post he held
until 1998. His first major task was preparation for the Service of Thanksgiving
to mark completion of the Nave of the Cathedral on 8th November 1995, attended
by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.
Since leaving the Cathedral, he has diversified his skills as a musician,
working as an accompanist to singers and instrumentalists, as a teacher and
Director of the Choir at St Kentigern College, as a broadcaster on New Zealand
radio with an acclaimed series of "Composer of the Week" programmes,
as a solo organ recitalist in venues ranging from Westminster Abbey to Melbourne
Cathedral to Dunedin Town Hall, and as founder- conductor of the choir, Musica
Sacra. He is also a CD reviewer for the English Cathedral Music magazine.
In December 1999 Indra played the organ for his own Citizenship
Ceremony at the Auckland Town Hall.
His favourite composers are J.S. Bach and Sir Hubert Parry. When not immersed
in music of one kind or another he spends as much time as possible in his two
favourite places, the Bay of Islands and Rarotonga.