‘Breath of Heaven’ :Sebs Carol Service
View(s):‘Breath of Heaven’ , the annual Carol service of St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa will be held on Sunday, 9th December at the College Auditorium from 6.30 pm onwards.
‘Breath of Heaven’ will feature the award winning St. Sebastian’s College Choir along with talented students and 100 school choristers from grades 6 to 13.
The choir is conducted by Angelo Perera and led by Shane Leyon, Gayan Jayawardena, Kavindu Cooray, and Revon Cooray.
‘Breath of Heaven’ theme is selected from a famous Christmas carol that tells the nativity story from Mary’s perspective. Amy Grant wrote a book titled Breath of Heaven in 2001 based on this song and the intimate nature of this tune has transformed it into a prayer.
The potential for growth of the Choir of St. Sebastian’s College is uniquely immense. A perfect example is the continuous development of the Christmas Carols for 16 consecutive years.
The history of St. Sebastian’s College’s Carols goes back to the 1960s, when the College administration was under the De La Salle Brothers.
After the takeover of the College administration by the Archdiocese of Colombo, the former Rector Rev. Fr. Bonnie Fernandopulle together with Rev. Fr. Prasad Niranjan, the founder Priest in Charge of the Sebs’s Choir, re-established the choir and it was made an inseparable part of the College events calendar. In the same year itself the first carol service or the foundation for the present carol service was laid.
Since 2003 up to date the annual carol service was developed and came to a very professional level on a yearly basis due to the dedication and hard work of its interested parties.
‘Sebs Carol Services’ has now identified as one of the best Carol, Services of the Archdiocese of Colombo.
In the year 2013 Fr. Prasad was sent to UK for his higher studies leaving a hard time to the College Choir. But as a silver lining in the dark clouds Shihan Chamba and Sanjeeva Silva took over the choir which was the beginning of a new era. Since 2013 the carol service was continued, publishing a souvenir as a special feature in the history. Continuing the laddering of improvement, a theme was introduced in 2014 for the first time when the theme was ‘Rejoice’ and it continued to the following year as ‘Christ our Hope’, ‘Gloria’, ‘Bethlehem’ and in 2018 , ‘Breath of Heaven’.
‘In the year 2015 Rev Fr. Vincent Ashley was appointed as the Priest in charge, who directed the choir to success together with the two trainers.
In the same year the combined choir item was also introduced. At present the Priest in charge of the choir is our Rector, Rev. Fr. Ranjith Andradi’ said Angelo Perera.
Carol services have been held from 2003 onwards consecutively for 16 years.
‘Breath of Heaven’ will focus on traditional hymns Classical compositions of great composers, modern classical compositions, modern and traditional Sinhala/English Carols
This year too the carols will be held with the aim of spreading Christmas cheers among the Moratuwa music loving public.
There will be no tickets issued for the event and the organisers say all music lovers are welcome.
