The evening that saw Lauries Road crowded with cars from end-to-end and the car parks of St. Mary’s packed to capacity, was an evening of many pleasant surprises. This beautiful edifice has played host to many a crowded service of devotion and choral excellence, but this evening was one with a delightful difference.
A capacity crowd of a 1000 souls was elevated by sensational combined voices of outstanding choirs. They sang hosannas to the Almighty for giving them a singular collaborator, whose musical genius augmented their singing to perfection, with his unique organ arrangements and accompaniments over the past 25 years.
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| Neranjan De Silva |
This evening’s choral display was a fitting sincere thank you to the maestro Neranjan De Silva on his birthday for the tireless 25 years he has spent in practices, public performances and devotional services of some of Sri Lanka’s choirs – The Merry-Anne Singers, Soul Sounds, St. Mary’s Choral Group, the Revelations and the Peterite Chorale. Neranjan made the Yamaha EL90 reverberate like a great cathedral organ and the combined choirs under the expert direction of the evergreen Mary Ann David came together in polyphonic perfection to say a big thank you to their Neranjan. One or two of the choristers showed overzealous involvement in the singing with amusing facial contortions/ but it was all part of the jubilation they were expressing.
Interspersed were the congregation’s lusty singing of hymns – the all-time church favourites and the invocations and tributes of the Christian Clergy – the Rt. Rev. Duleep de Chekera - Bishop of Colombo, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Valence Mendis – Bishop of Chilaw, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Marius Peiris , Auxiliary Bishop of Colombo and the Rev. Canon James Ratnanayagam. They all sang the praises of the birthday boy and gave thanks to God for Neranjan’s extraordinary musical talents.
The magnificent edifice dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary created the perfect ambience to enhance the spiritual value of prayer and song.
In all this perfected programming there was a specially satisfying moment when a 100 voices lay still to hear the talented offspring of Neranjan and Dayani – Surekha and Anila sing ‘God will make a way’, so pure and articulate to honour their father on his special day.
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