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It was simply dazzling!
By Smriti Daniel
There is a tremendous bustle that overflows out of the doors of the building in Chitra Lane. Little children are everywhere – talking, laughing and clutching hands. As one walks inside, it becomes apparent that rehearsals are in full swing. Here, classical music has a little girl twirling; there, another one grasps a walking stick and imitating age, hobbles convincingly along.

The event is Razzle Dazzle, a performance that showcased the talented students of the Varuni Jayasekera Academy of Speech, Drama and Communication. “I always tell them that acting is a serious business,” says Mrs. Jayasekara, smiling. The children under her guidance seem to think so, and are spending this poya day, hard at work. Interestingly, this does not exclude having a great deal of fun – all the laughter is testament to it.

This was the first time the academy is putting on such a show, and amidst all the bustle and excitement, Mrs. Jayasekara with the help of her “wonderful staff,” was orchestrating the movements of a number of tiny performers – no easy task when you consider that there are nearly 400 of them. All the performers are drawn from the younger generations, who attend the academy and so the youngest actors and actresses, speakers and dancers are still at the tender age of five, while the eldest are around 17 years old.

While the show featured some of the more conventional fairy tale characters, such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks, the unconventional too found their place. For instance, Professor Speghetti Freakestein and his machine introduce the somewhat controversial subject of cloning, Darrell Rivers and her friends from the Malory Towers series make an appearance, and the audience witnessed. A Morning at Pemberley (from Pride And Prejudice).
For Mrs. Jayasekara, simply preparing for the show has been wonderful. “So many of the children have just bloomed,” she explains, adding that normally the process of learning in order to pass an examination may be stressful for a child, as compared to getting ready for a show such as this. Such experiences are extremely beneficial for a child, holds Mrs. Jayasekara, adding that “This provides them the opportunity to sensitise themselves as a body, in a focused manner to that beautiful aspect of the arts which we call drama.” In a simple social sense as well the children benefit, having been given the opportunity to associate with their peers.

Varuni Jayasekara is an experienced teacher herself, having taught English, Speech and other closely-related subjects for nearly 26 years. She is the Chief Executive of the Varuni Jayasekara Academy of English for Specific Purposes, the Principal of the Academy of Speech, Drama and Communication, as well as an Executive Director and Member of the Board of Examiners of the Colombo Academy of Language Skills and Dramatic Art.

The Academy of Speech, Drama and Communication, which is responsible for Razzle Dazzle boasts 12 well-qualified teachers and approximately 700 students, who are trained and presented for examinations, conducted by institutions such as the Trinity College, London and the Colombo Academy of Language Skills and Dramatic Art.

Razzle Dazzle went on the boards at the Lionel Wendt on March 16 and 17.

Even Mozart would have been pleasantly surprised
By Satyajith Andradi
"Mozart knew Bach more by hearsay than from his works; at any rate he was quite ignorant of his motets, which had never been printed. Scarcely had the choir sung a few bars when he started up; a few bars more, and he called out: 'What is that?' And now his whole soul seemed to be in his ears. When the performance was over, he called out joyfully, 'That is indeed something from which we can learn!" wrote Friedrich Rochlitz reporting on an incident which occurred in 1789 during Mozart's brief visit to the Thomasschule in Leipzig, where Johann Sebastian Bach had been the cantor for much of his creative life.

The Bach composition which Mozart heard was the motel 'Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied' (Sing unto the Lord a new song) BWV 225. The delightful performance by the Camerata Musica of Bach's great motet 'Jesu, meine Freude' (Jesu, my joy), BWV 227, along with Mozart's own Mass in C Major (Coronation Mass), K 317 in celebration of the latter's 250th birth anniversary (the anniversary fell on January 27 this year) would have no doubt pleasantly surprised Mozart. The choral concert was held in the evening of Saturday, March 4 at St. Michael's Church, Colombo 3.

The choir was conducted by the guest conductor Gregory Rose. The soloists were Anagi Perera (Soprano), Peshali Yapa (Mezzo-Soprano), Asitha Tennakoon (Tenor) and Laknath Seneviratne (Bass-Baritone). Kamalinie Samarakoon played the organ.

The concert commenced with Bach's 'Jesu, meine Freude' BWV 227, which is certainly his most famous if not his greatest motet.. From a structural point of view, this work is an architectural wonder - an axial -symmetrical composition of eleven vocal movements centred on a great fugue for five voices! The musical texture is densely polyphonic. The text, which Albert Schweitzer described as Bach's sermon upon life and death, consists of Johann Franck's six part Lutheran hymn and five biblical verses from St. Paul's epistle to the Romans. The hymn tune of the chorale 'Jesu, meine Freude', which was also the basis of Bach's organ preludes BWV 610 and BWV 1105, provides the unifying musical and emotional basis of the whole masterpiece. The motet represents through and through the so-called 'learned' style in music. Its serene beauty belongs essentially to the realm of the spiritual and the cerebral.

The Bach motet was followed by Mozart's Coronation mass after a brief interval. This work, which belongs at least in spirit to the so-called 'gallant' style in music, stood in marked contrast to the Bach composition. The music was distinctly light and entertaining, with occasional strokes of grandeur and solemnity. The music of the 'Crucifixus' of the Credo is intensely moving. The mass is full of sensuous song-like melodies, of which the soprano solo of the Agnus Dei stands out prominently.

The Bach motet and the Mozart mass represent two diverse styles in western classical music - the 'learned' and the 'gallant' respectively. The Camerata Musica and their guest conductor Gregory Rose need to be congratulated for successfully showcasing two major choral works by two of the greatest composers of all time - Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

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