Arts
Songs and styles of a memorable decade
The Soul Sounds at an earlier concert. Pic by Shehal Joseph
That sense of nostalgia takes you back to an era where boy bands were the rage and caught the fancy of almost every teenager. A decade gripped by the soulful melodies of Boyz II Men, and great divas– remember powerhouse Mariah Carey on “One sweet day”, and Whitney Houston’s amazing cover of “I will always love you”. It was a decade that was memorable not only for its music but also that sense of style that branched out into the 21st century.
If you could relive all these memories, would you go for it? That’s just what Soul Sounds, the popular all-female Sri Lankan choir has to offer on August 6 and 7 at the Lionel Wendt theatre with their show ‘Totally 90’s’.
Earlier this week, the Sunday Times caught up with the choir at Park Street Mews Colombo. Regardless of how early it was, the air was filled with excitement as the girls chatted cheerfully and there were smiles all around as the seniors got them set for the cover shot.
Choir leader Nilanga Jayawickreme and senior chorister, Shehara Liyanage recall the challenges that the choir has overcome through the years.
“We like to do a lot of different things, so we don’t try to limit ourselves to one genre of music. We have different interests and especially with the things that we love musically, so we try to incorporate that as a group,”Nilanga tells us.
Back in 2008 Soul Sounds took a bold leap to perform pop music as a choir. And they drew inspiration from the king of pop himself, Michael Jackson. “We realised that we had to do something because we were so influenced by his music,” Shehara says.
Nilanga Jayawickreme
“Chorally it is not easy to sing pop and that concert was a successful one for us, because not only did we get a full house but tickets sold out in a matter of hours. That concert sort of propelled us to try different genres of music.”
They had so much fun with pop music because a lot of them had grown up listening to the music. It was also a lot of fun dressing up for the show, they add. “It’s not only about the singing but we try to get into the whole experience of whatever we do,” Shehara says.
Nilanga explains that for this show they tried to figure out what was the big thing that could be done this year. “Once we did the 80’s, we said listen, we conquered the 80’s now we have to conquer the 90’s.” That was when the choir had decided to put together the show.
“What’s interesting is that we have younger members who were born in the 90’s and for them it’s a bit of an eye-opener because they haven’t heard artists like the Spice Girls etc. But for us, the older members, it’s what we grew up with and we are trying to pay tribute to that,” she adds.
The pair tell us that the one thing they realised, whilst trying to put together a set list was that the music was very varied in terms of even the hits in the 90’s. There were several pop hits, Rock, Alternative and grunge hits as well.
“The music inspired us at different stages of our lives,” Shehara says. She adds that when they were a lot younger it was the boy bands, but as they got older they kept introducing themselves to much more and were influenced by different genres.
Shehara Liyanage
Soul Sounds will be accompanied by their Founder and Director Soundarie David Rodrigo on the piano. Dhanuksha Seniviratne will be on keyboards, Revel Crake on guitar, Pradeep Rodrigo on bass, Guyrika Weerasinghe on Percussion and Christopher Prins on drums. The choir will also be joined on stage by some of the beneficiaries of the Shilpa Trust.
“We as Soul Sounds are so blessed. So many people have come forward to support us and we’ve come this far, because of the people who believe in us. And we want to give back in whatever way we can. So we think it’s important to work with different communities,” Nilanga says.
Shehara chimes in that the choir tries to put out a message through their performances. “It’s not just about singing chorally and sitting pretty, we try to bring attention to things that are happening all over the world and how we can make a change and we did that with our previous show “Totally 80’s” and we felt that it was well received by the audience. This time we hope that we can draw attention to another good cause.”
The proceeds from the show will go to the educational programme of the Shilpa Children’s Trust. Tickets for the show are available at the Soul Sounds Academy, 57/2 Kassapa Road, off Jawatte Road, Colombo 5 and at the Lionel Wendt Theatre. Tickets are priced at Rs. 4000, 3000, 2000, 1000 and 750 (Balcony).