The Old Joes Choir: Celebrating 20 years
Twenty years ago the Old Joes Choir registered as a choir that would love to do what they do best – Sing. Now its artistic heirs are making their celebration of 20 years though the combination of voices has possibly changed dramatically; times have changed, as the current 40-50 man roster can attest. I believe, the membership of the choir these days isn’t exclusively tied to the seniors, though the award winning male outfit still produces good cohesiveness and overall balance with good tone and the singers mostly men in their 20s and 30s with the minority 40’s, have taken on the role of revivalists of a bygone tradition of singing in “harmony” compared to some other choirs who even go to the extent of miming!
The Old Joes Choir (OJC) possesses an extensive repertoire that includes sacred work, traditional folk songs plus works by contemporary composers not forgetting Barbershop which won them a Championship in Riga, Latvia.
The overall sound this mass of male voices produced at their 20th anniversary concert, ‘This is my Story’ on March 17, was delightful with well reputed and respected accompanist Eshantha Peiris together with two – three additional musicians adding style to this wonderful evening though I felt the drummer could have been a tad softer. Most noticeable was the spine-chilling beauty of these 40 – 50 singers when they held their musical line in one long sustained soft sound. This was particularly apparent in the wonderful arrangement of “Precious Lord take my hand” and “Kum Bah Yah”.
The old Joes in performance. Pic by M.A. Pushpa Kumara
Some amazing other items were “Shut D Dor”, “Just a closer walk”, “Soon and very soon”, a very new and rare version of “How great thou art” but the best was A. Schmidt’s “Lux Aeterna”. The jury work that I am involved in has made me hear many choirs perform this but THIS interpretation stands in my top three with the best being a Junior College Choir from Singapore – Bravi.
One of the most impressive items was the last item, “Blessed Assurance” even though there was a mind freeze of a key change from a verse to a verse – I felt the choir was at its best with evenness in tone but I found the choir lacking soul compared to the conductor in “Ave Maria” while the rise and fall of the top note for tenors was scratchy. As it happens with most choirs, I also found that the choir sounded tired (maybe a tad too much of practising) on a couple of items namely “Rock keep silent” and “Nearer my God to thee” where the Tenors were under the top notes and there was too much of a rush for Nearer my God to thee – that having been said both items sounded decent. I thought the very simple Sinhala rendition of the Lord’s Prayer “Suralo madale”, a most appropriate contribution to the evening as it also got the congregation singing.
I think choirs these days have a bit of an image problem and feel they need a throwback to gentler times but from what I see, the OJC seems to have not lost that image even with a membership that has changed over the 20 years although one notable fact was that you had 3 – 4 singers who had no smile on their faces… See, when 95% of the membership is enjoying themselves in a certain piece the 5% who are not – are seen clearly and I noticed they were from the membership who didn’t sing all the pieces on the programme, so maybe they were not really into the music but this too is understandable as the review is made not considering that the OJC is a professional outfit. Professional or not, I believe that one of the rarities be it in any field leave alone a music concert in Sri Lanka, is to start on time; and in this respect even though this concert started 10 minutes late and was thankfully mentioned so (which again is a rarity), I urge all organizers to respect people who have come early either into church or a concert venue and begin the concert / show on time.
In the midst of the Minister of Tourism and Religious Affairs who was present way before the start time, the OJC gave the music loving public in Colombo a great evening of choral harmony titled “This is my story” lasting a perfect 75 minutes and what a story it has been. It was lovely to see three conductors in operation – I support this for practical reasons although certainly the styles would be different. In Geethika Cooray, Eshantha Peiris and Nishantha Warnakulasuriya that was clearly evident but the choir was up to it responding very well to each of them and their unique styles of conducting.
In an international industry where Male voice choirs are winding up (in Hungary where male voice choirs were so popular, you will find it hard to find 5 of them today!), we wish you well in this celebratory year and many more years of giving us, the audience, the talents bestowed upon each of you by God – using your voices to sing.