Sri Lankan Choral Week 2015 starting on Saturday, March 21 will culminate in the grand production of St. John’s Passion by J. S. Bach at St. Paul’s Church, Kynsey Road, on Saturday, March 28 at 7 p.m.

Sri Lankan Choral Week (SLCW) takes place in Sri Lanka for the first time, under the co-direction of Lakshman Joseph de Saram and Soundari David, who need no introduction to Sri Lankan classical music enthusiasts. Organisers expect the participation of more than 60 regional and international musicians at vocal and conducting workshops held throughout the week.

The idea for SLCW was, in fact, originally that of Gregory Rose. Rose, a well-known name on the international classical stage, is not a foreigner to Sri Lanka. He has visited the island numerous times, worked with many choirs and chamber groups, and staged many awe-inspiring performances for our audiences, most memorably, Verdi’s Requiem in 2009 and a comprehensive selection of Opera Choruses in 2014. His engagement with and love for Sri Lanka and her musicians birthed the idea of a week of intensive vocal and conducting workshops that would lead to a major performance.

Rose will lead the conducting workshops while his colleague at the Trinity Laban Conservatory, Alison Wells, will conduct workshops and masterclasses for singers during SLCW 2015. Wells, who has performed on nearly all of London’s famed stages, in classical as well as contemporary shows, will also train the Sri Lanka Festival Chorus for its final performance at the end of the week’s events.
The organizers hope that SLCW will grow into an annual event, creating more opportunities to feature major choral works in Sri Lanka, as well as to draw regional attention to western classical music in the island. SLCW 2015 will in fact see the participation of a number of musicians from India.

Fairway Holdings is premier sponsor for Sri Lanka Choral Week, and all Choral Week events (apart from the final performance) will be held at Geothe Institut, another generous sponsor of the event.

Sri Lankan Choral Week workshops are open to the public and registrations will open at the Geothe Institut on Saturday, March 21.

Grand finale: Bach’s St. John’s Passion St. John’s Passion is not the most famous of J. S. Bach’s works. But Concert Master of the Colombo Chamber Music Society and Co-Director of SLCW, violinist Lakshman Joseph de Saram, is excited for the opportunity to be performing the work in Sri Lanka. “It is so visceral!” he enthuses. “People talk about how Bach never wrote opera, but this is as opera as it gets.” The work is based on the last days of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, as described in chapters 18 and 19 of the Gospel according to John. It follows the German text closely, but also takes from that of St. Matthew, weaving chorus and instruments together to build the intense drama of the situation of Jesus’ impending death. The piece opens on the Kidron Valley and moves to the palace of the high priest Caiphas in the first section, while the second section is a dramatic argument between Pilate, Jesus and the crowd, followed by a scene at Golgotha and then at the burial site. The work will be performed by over 60 musicians from the Sri Lanka Festival Chorus and the Colombo Chamber Music Society, featuring “some of the finest singers in the country,” promises de Saram. He also adds that the instrumentalists are “relishing the opportunity” to perform this “extremely satisfying” music. St. John’s Passion has been performed once before in Sri Lanka at the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, Polwatte, under the baton of Lalanath de Silva (director of the SOSL at the time), in 2002. The performance on Saturday, March 28 starting 7 p.m. will be held at St. Paul’s Church, Kynsey Road, Borella, which de Saram guarantees “has a fantastic acoustic, very close to that of the Dutch Reformed Church” (which arguably has probably the best acoustic in the island). Entrance to the concert will be via programmes, available at the Goethe Institut from Monday, March 16.

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