Roping in young talents

soulful strains

Even the incessant rains in several parts of the City didn’t deter music lovers from going to the 23rd Festival of Harmony, organised by the Glorious choir recently.

 The festival saw several school, college, church choirs and a few independent choirs from across the country perform at the event. Most choirs sang popular Christian hymns, African spirituals and a few pieces were sung in A cappella.The more popular songs were tuned and sung in a different style. And some other groups sung pieces that were composed by them. Each of the performances was in contemporary style. None were too dull and boring.

Among the participating choirs were Mallya Aditi, St Francis Xavier, Bishop Cotton Girls’, St John’s High School and Clarence in the school choir category. From the college list there was a good representation with Christ College choir, Jyoti Nivas College, Mount Carmel College, St Joseph’s Arts and Science and Kristhu Jayanthi rendering popular numbers.

The church choirs had East Parade Malayalam, Wesley Church and Bangalore Mizo Church. The independent choirs also turned up in impressive numbers with ‘Reverb’, ‘Treble Swing’ Glorious Children’s Choir and Glorious Choir leading the group. Esther Chandy, co-founder of Glorious said, “This year all groups presented at least one acoustic number. That has given us a good variety. Through Festival of Harmony we try and encourage young talent and provide them with a wholesome stage and an appreciative audience. The advent of the A cappella and the unplugged age has given many a young people an impetus to come together and create good harmony with their own variations thrown in.”

The participating groups said that they were thrilled with the amount of talent on stage. Every participating group sang had to sing an acoustic song. Herbert Paul, director of Wesley Church choir and Progen, an independent group said, “The festival has always an a secular twist with the participating choirs singing in all languages. We saw a lot of groups from the City participate in full strength. The festival is getting better by the year.” 

Aswathy Merin, director of ‘Treble Swing’, another group observed, “We were nervous when we auditioned to participate in the festival and we were thrilled when we got through to participate. The festival does well to encourages young talent and the mix of choirs is impressive. We were also encouraged to make our own music which is a good thing.”