Mumbai’s musical landscape lost one of its most enduring pillars, with the passing of Jini Dinshaw, who committed her life to the art of orchestral music. Founder of the Bombay Chamber Orchestra (BCO) – India’s oldest and most enduring Western classical orchestra – Jini Dinshaw was revered as a one-woman institution who devoted her life to nurturing generations of musicians and keeping orchestral music alive in India. She passed away peacefully at her Mumbai home on 23^rd October, 2025, at the age of 95.

Born in 1930, the youngest of eight children, to Parsi businessman Dinshaw Dhunjibhoy Mistry, Jini was expected to become a doctor. But it was music, and not medicine, that proved to be her calling. In 1947, defying convention, Jini persuaded her father to let her sail to England to study the violin under Gladys Noon, with whom she lived and worked, to support herself. Over the next thirteen years, she refined her craft as a violinist and teacher, before returning to Bombay in 1960, at her ailing mother’s request.

Finding the city bereft of orchestral music after the closure of the Bombay Symphony and Philharmonic, she founded the Bombay Chamber Orchestra in 1962, to provide local musicians, especially her students, a platform to perform. With modest means but immense determination, she built the orchestra section by section, often training the players herself. Collaborating with the Goethe Institute and British Council, she brought European conductors to mentor Indian musicians, and even travelled to Switzerland in the 1970s to master cello pedagogy, so she could train new cellists herself.

Under her visionary leadership, the BCO evolved into India’s premier indigenous orchestra, performing regularly at Mumbai’s leading cultural venues such as the NCPA, Sophia Bhabha Hall and Prithvi Theatre. A defining milestone came in 1985 when the Bombay Chamber Orchestra joined hands with Britain’s Royal Ballet Company to present ‘Giselle’ – India’s first live ballet performance with orchestral accompaniment. Over the years, the BCO also performed alongside maestros like Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, uniting Eastern and Western musical traditions.

Jini Dinshaw lived and breathed the art of teaching. She was married to her music – it was life itself for her. She taught the violin, viola and cello well into her nineties, introducing hundreds of children to music through the Orff method – a joyful blend of rhythm, melody and movement. She made music accessible to all, often waiving fees and lending instruments to students in need.

Jini Dinshaw leaves behind a vast musical lineage – hundreds of students, countless admirers and the living legacy of the Bombay Chamber Orchestra, which continues to perform, inspire and honour her vision. For Mumbai’s orchestral community, her passing is indeed the quiet closing of a symphony that began more than six decades ago, and whose echoes will endure for generations to come.