“Hellooo Mary Lou, Good Bye Heart, Sweet Mary Lou, I am sooo in Love with you, so hello Mary Lou, Good Bye Heaaaaaarrrt…..Koff, koff!” Oh well, I am no singer. But walking into the St Josephs college auditorium to hear their choir practicing this song for an upcoming concert, I was almost (not quite, but almost) moved to forget that I couldn’t carry a tune in a basket and want to join in.
The ’87 batch of Josephians are organizing a choral concert titled Saints in Harmony to refurbish the middle school auditorium of their alma mater as well as to promote choral music in general in Sri Lanka.
They have roped in Choro Benedicte (choir of St. Benedicts College) as well as Soul Sounds, the world famous choral group of Sri Lanka, who have just recently returned from a concert in France. According to their music director Soundarie David, Soul Sounds will perform from the same repertoire of songs that they sang for the concert in France.
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| Old Joes Choir |
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| Soul sounds |
The Josephians and the Benedictines meanwhile have been busy practicing since January to put on a perfect show. Both choirs have had concerts before, which were enormously successful. For the ‘87 batch of old Joes however, this will be a first. The members of the current choir range all the way from the batch of ‘87 to the recently graduated batch of ’08 – an age range of more than 20 years.
It’s even more interesting for the Benedictines, whose oldest member is 67 and the youngest 19. According to Krishan Rodrigo, one of the chorus directors of the group, the older members are the key ones. Two such are Bosco Fonseka and Denzil Perera who have been famous in the Sri Lankan music scene for nearly 40 years, mainly as the Simon and Garfunkel of Sri Lanka.
“We are doing eight songs in total and it’s a wide spread. We have one religious song, “Yesu – Lover of My Soul,” which is coming out extremely well. All the other songs span decades from Simon and Garfunkel and the Beatles to Queen and Sting and The Police,” says Krishan. According to Migara Luvis, one of the three choral directors of the Josephians, they will also be having a wide range including pop, Broadway, religious classics and modern ballads. Soul Sounds will be some performing gospels, semi classics and pop.
St Josephs and St. Benedicts will be the feature choirs while Soul Sounds are the guest performers. Saints in Harmony promises to be two soul stirring nights at the Lionel Wendt on May 2 and 3, with the concert starting at 7pm. The tickets are priced at Rs.400 (balcony), 600, 750, 1000 and 1500. Enjoy! |
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