Choral Week and St. John’s Passion
View(s):For the first time in Sri Lanka, musicians from around the island and region have come together to engage in an intensive week-long training programme geared toward refining vocal and conducting skills and putting together the performance of a major choral work – St. John’s Passion by J. S. Bach, at St. Paul’s Church, Kynsey Road, on Saturday, March 28.
The Sri Lanka Choral Week (SLCW) currently on at the Goethe Institut, sees a small group of highly experienced and committed conductors from Sri Lanka and the South Asian region engaged in intensive training sessions with internationally recognized conductor, Gregory Rose. Vocal masterclasses and choral training sessions directed by Alison Wells, run parallel to the conducting workshops.
The programme, modelled on an English style “summer school”, has been in the works since 2002.
“It’s been a long process to finalize the format and get it up and running,” Rose said, a little reluctant about whether they will continue the programme. “But having got it up and running,” he adds, “it will certainly be easier to repeat the process!”
“This is just the beginning,” Soundarie David, Co-Director of SLCW said. “We hope to further build on this, not restricting its scope to singers and conductors but possibly in the future for instrumentalists as well.” Their objective, she points out, is “creating something sustainable over the years.”
Co-Director of SLCW, Lakshman Joseph De Saram, is also keen to see the programme continue. As Concert Master for the Chamber Music Society of Colombo, the orchestral partner of SLCW, De Saram feels that the event is ideal for drawing regional attention to Sri Lanka, its musicians and the music scene in general.
Wells, vocal instructor and Choral Director for the event, has extensive experience on the stages or London and abroad, and as a singing teacher in the UK. She is currently on the professorial staff for Voice at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London, has professional singers in her private studio, gives masterclasses in London and Paris and also teaches at AIMS Summer School and on the Wessex Solo Singers Course.
Despite these impressive engagements, “I also very much enjoy working with less experienced singers,” she said.Wells’ aim at SLCW is to “help people achieve more ease and freedom in their singing and to give them some good practice methods to take away with them.”
While singing in the western classical tradition is popular among many local musicians, conducting is not a profession many actively pursue. This may be because, as Rose points out, conducting is “rather like being a managing director in a company,” requiring confidence, clear communication and good leadership skills. During the week’s training, Rose is focussed on building these skills among the class participants, while replacing unnecessary aggression with positive, clear directing.
The week’s events “certainly will add to the music scene in Sri Lanka,” David believes. “Sri Lanka has a lot of talent, and sadly we don’t have the resources to further enhance this.” So what SLCW is doing, is reproducing the English “summer school” experience in Sri Lanka.
Apart from honing musicians’ specific skills and giving them new ideas, the event will encourage networking among local musicians as well as international participants. Ideally, it will set up a broad platform for the long-term development of the western classical performance arena in Sri Lankan music and in the region, in terms of collaboration.
As maybe a predictor of this possibility, SLCW will also feature a mid-week recital by Alison Wells and Soundarie David. The pair have worked together before, in the UK. “She is a wonderful pianist and outstanding musician,” Wells says of David, “and I’m very much looking forward to renewing my acquaintance with her, and to collaborating.” The programme will be a short collection of songs and arias which Wells plans will include “some beautiful songs and arias, with a wide variety to suit all tastes.”
The grand finale is the Sri Lanka Festival Chorus and the Chamber Music Society of Colombo presenting St. John’s Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach under the baton of Gregory Rose.
This will be the first time that Rose conducts the St John Passion in full, but he has known the work for some 40 years, and often directed choruses from it. “The work is a mixture of high tension (the story of the crucifixion of Christ) and reflection, with some of J. S. Bach’s finest music,” he says. “The choruses are magnificent, and this is why we chose this particular work.”
“The choruses are varied and some are quite challenging,” Wells adds, confirming Rose’s impression that the work would “stretch” the voices suitably. “The choir is the crowd in the passion story,” Wells continues, “and so can bring all the drama of that narrative to their singing!”
It is a very ‘Christian’ work, but this does not mean that you have to be Christian to achieve the powerful tension and relaxation of the high points of the work,” Rose says, “it has a message for humans of all religions and nations.”
Entrance to the performance of St. John’s Passion on March 28 at St. Paul’s Church, Kynsey Road will be via programmes, now available at Goethe Institut.
The voice and piano recital by Alison Wells and Soundarie David is tentatively scheduled for March 26 at the Mount Lavinia Hotel. Updates are available at www.facebook.com/SLChoralWeek.
- N.P.