‘I Will Follow, I Will Lead’
Choral activity in Sri Lanka has risen to an unprecedented level during the past years, following a growing interest in the field with the student community in Sri Lanka being largely responsible for the recognition that choirs and choral events gain.
Displaying a vast array of talents, innovative dynamics, creative arrangements and exploring the boundaries of traditional and contemporary music, school choirs have thrilled and amazed audiences for countless years in the past.
The S. Thomas’ Preparatory School Choir is one such choir, home to many talented and energetic youngsters from the ages of 11 to 16 years, as it provides a platform for these students to express their creativity through music and arts. The 35+ number of Choristers each dabbles in various genres of music from Gospel to Rock to Pop as they are trained to be versatile not only in their music but in their approach to music as a practice for life and its challenges.
This year, S. Thomas’ Preparatory School celebrates 80 years in existence and thus has a year filled with various activities and events to commemorate this momentous occasion. As a part of the year’s celebrations, the Choir will be organising “I Will Follow, I Will Lead”, a three day concert held on the 7th, 8th and 9th of September 2018 at the Auditorium of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Kollupitiya.
‘As this concert marks an extremely important celebration in our calendar, we have been working tirelessly to ensure the outcome is as great or even greater than any other professional concert out there by bringing in Christopher Prins on Drums, Melissa Pereira on Keyboard, Shalintha Rodrigo on Bass, Julius Mitchell as guest Beatboxer, Professor Sujeewa Ranasinghe as guest Esraj Player and the dynamic duo Ayushka Nugaliyadda and Mihara Jayalath as their Choreographers’ said Sanchitha Wickremesooriya, the leader of the Choir and the force behind this musical project.
The choir will be led by Berklee College of Music alumnus Sanchitha Wickremesooriya who has been working with the boys for around 2 1/2 years to date, inspiring the kids to reach international standards by exposing them to a series of workshops conducted in partnership with The Sooriya Village with people such as Fellow Prepite Kavichandran Alexander, The First Sri Lankan to Record and Produce Multiple Grammy Award winning albums, and many others.
The choir not only will be performing songs from the western pop charts, but has the honour of performing songs from local artistes such as Alien Accent, Sanuka Wickramasinghe, KATCHA, Ridma Weerawardena and Dilan Jayakody, with special tracks created by Ranil Goonawardene and Sachiththa Fernando.
In addition, the Prep Choir will not only be sharing the stage with a different guest choir each night such as Ladies College (Sept. 7th), Bishops College (Sept. 8th) and Visakha Vidyalaya (Sept. 9th), but will also be performing together with choristers from the S. Thomas’ College family of schools namely S. Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia, S. Thomas’ College Bandarawela and S. Thomas’ College Gurutalawa, with a special appearance by The Old Boys Choir of STPS.
‘We also have the pleasure of amazing sponsors coming on board including DSI Super Sports and AVI as our Platinum Sponsors’ Sanchitha added.
Mobitel, Seylan Bank and Ideal Motors are the Gold Sponsors of ‘I Will Follow, I Will Lead’, while 89th Cavalry – STPS Old Boys Batch of 1989 is the Silver Sponsor, Asia Pacific Investments, Sri Lanka Insurance and Trelleborg came forward as Bronze Sponsors. Media Sponsor is Yes FM and Decibel.lk is the Social Media partner.
Tickets are priced at Rs. 2000/- a seat and are available at the Bishops College Auditorium Office from 9.00am – 4.00pm from 6th September.