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Rich sounds
The Choro Benedicte gave a concert of choral music at the Lionel Wendt on August 3 and 4.

The hallmark of this male voice choir is their excellent ensemble. Both in tonal quality and balance, the choir is arguably the best male voice choir we have in this country.

The Lionel Wendt is undoubtedly the best concert hall for a group such as this, and the sounds came through very well, even in the balcony. I am glad that they decided to sing Sinhala and Tamil songs too, as these were done well. The choice of having only a tabla accompaniment gave and added charity to the harmonies of their rendition of Danno Budunge. In this day and age when we are attempting to promote national harmony by every means possible, the contribution made by groups such as this to include Sinhala and Tamil songs in an otherwise Western oriented programme should be commended.

If the performance could be faulted in any way, it was a certain lack of liveliness in some of the items which deserved more momentum and life to be really enjoyable. The accompanist, though competent, was at times inadequate, especially in items such as Verdi's Pilgrim's Chorus and Anvil Chorus and Wagner's Bridal Chorus.

An electronic piano or organ might have helped. The choir should make more use of the sounds of countertenors, which I have no doubt they are capable of doing and for this purpose, include in their repertoire works by Purcell and Handel, and the madrigals by composers such as Monteverdi and Morley. Their plainsong Gregorian-like chanting, which introduced the first item could be used to good effect, especially if they hope to perform in Church.

While in Wales, I had the privilege of listening to the famed Welsh Male Voice choirs and attending rehearsals of the Treorchy Male Voice Choir which tours extensively, and in many ways, the Choro Benedicte can compare with the best of them.

I hope they will continue to prosper and keep up the traditions built over more than half a century.
- Dr. Lalith Perera

Singing, acting, dancing and studying
By Alfreda de Silva
When a comprehensive history of the women who pioneered education for girls in this country comes to be written, an eminent woman who will feature high on this list is Ruth Marshall. She was the Founder Principal of St. Clare's Girls School in Kollupitiya in 1899.

Now over a hundred years old, this school still bounces along in Wellawatte with Mrs. C.G. Abeywickremasinghe as its Head. Its present name is St. Clare's Balika Vidyalaya, an inheritance from 1962, when the school was 'taken over' by a regulated school system.

Ruth Marshall's institution was first intended for the many Burghers who lived in the Kollupitiya area but it did not debar students of other nationalities.

A noteworthy feature of her system of education was the granting of partial or full scholarships to deserving girls who could not afford a secondary education.

One of these scholarship students was Constance Jansen, who studied at St. Clare's Kollupitiya up to the Senior Cambridge Examination which she passed with distinction. Financial constraints hindered her from enrolling at the Government Teacher Training College or the University of Ceylon.

Instead she passed the Teacher's Certificate Examination of the Department of Education and taught at St. Clare's until her marriage to Shelton Blacker, when she settled down in Nugegoda. With the encouragement of her husband, she worked on the idea of a many faceted private school for girls based closely on the ideas she had gathered from Ruth Marshall.

However, the first pupil who came to her on June 1, 1924 was not a girl but a little boy named Sydney Jansz. This was in order, because boys were to be admitted to her school up to the primary level.

Very shortly more and more children joined the school. Soon she had enough pupils and teachers to qualify for registering it with the Department of Education, so creating Girton School which became a grant -in- aid -institution.

Typically, she chose the name Girton after the distinguished women's college in Cambridge hitching her school to a star from its inception. She herself did not leave this country until she had retired many many years later and her daughter, Ursula Ebert took her on a tour of England that included the dreamed of Cambridge and Girton College.

Learning became a delight at Girton. It was still in its inception housed partly in Mr. & Mrs. Blacker's sprawling bungalow and partly a mud- walled thatchroofed building in the large garden at the back of their home. But the school room was quite often wherever the teachers wanted it to be - the park, the beach, the post office, the railway station or the garden.

Memorable are those garden lessons. Sometimes rain drove us in and we ran under the thatch of our school; and so flexible and free was our time table that we switched our history lesson for poetry. We listened to the rain outside, recited sea poems and sang sea-shanties. Imagination made us drunken sailors tossed in a barbarous sea.

Mrs. Blacker had got round to amalgamating the Education Department syllabus with an exciting syllabus where theatre figured prominently. It gave freedom to the individual learner and took her away from the boredom of too great a dependence on text books. There was no learning by rote and reproducing lecture notes given by teachers. History and Literature were often taught through drama. A subject called individual work on the time table was a challenging way of offering the student opportunities for self discovery and self realization. During this time budding artists painted, book worms read silently in the reading room and wouldbe writers whose mentor was Cora Abrahams set off on their adventures of the imagination and sent their effort to the children's pages of the Sunday papers.

Another novel subject was musical appreciation - listening to music under the guidance of the singing teacher - in this case the lovable but unpredictable Mrs. Spencer Sheppard. Starting with Gregorian chants and the classics we moved on to folk songs of the American deep south.

Incidentally that first Girton primary school boy Sydney Jansz retired as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank. And another notable primary pupil Wilhelm Woutersz is well known as a senior diplomat.

The extra curricular activities that Girton had did not interfere with the syllabus. Examination results were always good.

The rapidly growing school population consisted mainly of Burghers from Nugegoda and the surrounding suburbs with a fair representation of Europeans from the planting and business communities.

The school's registers throughout its existence recorded such surnames as Kreltszheim, Collette, O'Connor, Keegal, Van Twest, Risser de Hoedt, Mayo Smith, Ebert Kroon, Bulner, Bevan, Kellar, Kelaart, Shockman, Overlunde, Ferdinand, Ponlier, Rode, Decker, Drieberg, Raymond, McCready and Malinsen among a list of others.

There was a fair sprinkling of Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims and we integrated well with the rest.

Many of the Burgher students and their families returned to the lands of their origin or sought new pastures when Sinhala was made compulsory as the language of instruction for students of this country in the late nineteen fifties. They fulfilled themselves in their chosen spheres as doctors, teachers, business women, librarians, architects and home-makers. Several made their mark in TV, music, radio and theatre. The school's many theatrical productions and Shelton Blacker's performances as an amateur actor, ventroliquist and as Martin the Magician, during his time off from regular work at the Colombo Commercial Company,entertained large and delighted audiences of children and adults, and raised much needed funds for the building of the new school.

Mr. Blacker was the school's far sighted manager, a benign presence, seldom seen except on special occasions.

It was not long before we left the thatch- roofed, mudwalled makeshift building to occupy our new school built like a theatre. It had been growing slowly in the extended premises.

It consisted of a large auditorium and a well equipped stage almost as large, its excess space meant to be screened off as classrooms in term-time and dressing rooms on theatre nights.

Conscious that she had no tertiary education, Mrs. Blacker took every opportunity of attending educational seminars, lectures and discussions at the Government Training College and the University of Ceylon and other venues taking her teachers with her. There were highly qualified and hand picked talks by distinguished visitors, both local and foreign looked forward to by us all.

Girton School ceased to exist in the early sixties. Rather than change its lifestyle by accepting a totally different pattern imposed on the educational system at the time she closed it down.

Constance Blacker's greatest contribution to education was to give a whole new meaning to learning, freeing it from its shackles and making it a continuing pleasurable exercise, a total and life long experience.

Previn weds Anne-Sophie Mutter
Classical violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter has married the conductor, composer and pianist Andre Previn in New York, her office has said.

The 39-year-old violinist, whose first husband Detlef Wunderlich died of cancer in 1995, is to move to Munich in the south of Germany with the 73-year-old. The two were married earlier this month.

Mutter is one of the world's most celebrated violinists. Mutter and Previn have performed extensively together in the last 12 months. In March this year, Mutter premiered the Previn Violin Concerto, which the composer wrote for the violinist. Mutter was also part of the London Symphony Orchestra Previn directed in June and July.

Born in Germany, Mutter began her career in 1977 under the direction of the then head of Berlin's Philharmonic Orchestra, Herbert von Karajan, before travelling widely in Europe and North America.


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