Soulful music

Fast becoming one of the most sought-after and entertaining chorale groups around, ‘Soul Sounds’ plans to rock your world soon enough.

Complete with super quality voices, creative presentation and versatility, it's safe to say that this group of young individuals has definitely gone places. Rotary Aid 2007, is scheduled to be held on June 9, at 7pm, at the Ananda College Auditorium.
Organised in aid of a project by the Rotary, they will be the sole choir performing at the event. The repertoire for the evening will include standard chorale numbers, classical pieces, pop and jazz songs, hits from the movies and also Sinhalese and Tamil songs.

Says Soundarie David, Music Director of ‘Soul Sounds, "This talented group of girls have shown off Sri Lanka to the rest of the world, competing in numerous international competitions and performing at various venues, around the world. The most recent being two tours in Australia and Kuwait. Soul Sounds, is in a way setting a trend for choirs in Sri Lanka."
The choir was originally known as the Holy Family Convent Senior choir, where under the guidance of Soundarie, the choir had several well received performances.

Its first major international exposure was when the choir decided to enter The International Eistedfodd Festival in Llangollen, in 2004, a competition in Wales, on the advice of Mr. Gregory Rose, a prominent conductor in England.
The choir was rewarded for its hard work when it was selected runner-up in the Youth Choir category. Their competitors came from USA, Australia, UK, Israel, Canada, Wales and many other countries.

The next big break for Soul Sounds was the World Choir Games in Xiamen, China 2006, where they won two silver medals. The international jury gave them 7863 points in the Gospel and Spiritual category and 7500 points in the Scenic Folklore category, competing with more than 2000 choirs from 60 countries.

The choir's International Australia Tour was next up, with them performing for audiences in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne in February 2007, which marked their first international concert tour.

Soul Sounds will also be launching their second CD titled 'Soul Sounds in Australia,' on the day of the performance, which will include 15 songs, once again including a mixed repertoire of songs.

While the Artistic Director of Soul Sounds is Jerome de Silva, Neranjan de Silva is the choir's Keyboardist, while Christopher Prins accompanies them on drums and percussion. The secret of the choir's success, according to Neranjan is “the fact that the girls love what they are doing. They enjoy singing and are willing to toil hard to achieve greater heights.

They exhibit enormous enthusiasm, motivation, and self confidence. The girls are all characters in themselves with a lot of variety and individuality."

According to Ruwangie Cooray (24), a member of Soul Sounds, the main feature of the concert will be the medlies. Going onto to describe another feature of Soul Sounds, she pointed out that their presentation went a long way in gaining their audiences' interest.

"Our creative presentation, and the many costume changes we do during one performance always gives the audience something to remember us by. So at every concert, we keep seeing people who have been at a previous performance as well!"
"It's not just singing that we present to the audience, it's a whole performance, whether it is a bit of dramatising or the costumes. Our costumes match the various moods of the songs we are performing, so it's given that extra edge at the show," she said.