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College Choir

On a cold winter's evening on the seventeenth of December, the St. Xavier's College auditorium was drowned in the melody of the yuletide spirit with the College Choir singing 'O Come all ye Faithful', ushering in the essence of Christmas. Then followed hymns and carols like 'Ode To Joy', 'Joy To The World' and 'Silent Night' along with Schubert's 'Ave Maria'.

The western music four-part choir of the college gave its first concert that evening in 2004 after two to three months of rigorous rehearsals for three hours everyday under the guidance of Professor Bertram da Silva and Professor Christina Mirza. The rehearsals began from end-September, before the Puja holidays, right up to December when the practices intensified with the approaching concert. Professor da Silva took up the cudgels of the choir director, making the entire arrangements of the compositions as well as taking care of the nuances and finer aspects like voice modulation and volume. The choir, accompanied by Jonathan Ramgopal on the piano, was conducted by Professor Mirza.

Before the choir began, auditions were held, after which the selected students were made to undergo a complete re-orientation in terms of vocal training and vocal exercises under the guidance of the choir mistress ; the exercises though tiresome were fun. Upon asking her about these training sessions, she said that initially it had seemed like an uphill task as a large number of students had no training and there was 'the difficulty of teaching them to sing without shouting'. Moreover, since others were either trained in Indian classical or were more accustomed to singing pop music, it was quite a challenge to get them to sing bass, tenor, alto or soprano in the correct manner. Every part was taught separately ; every line was perfected during these ' unnerving' rehearsals. But when all four parts were sung together it would sound completely different, not to mention, brilliant, and that is where the real excitement lay, in being able to create something absolutely new and interesting, As Prof. Mirza gushes, "It was truly a moment of fulfilment."

The first concert that was held in the auditorium was organized on a grand scale. Professor da Silva played the guitar in 'O Come All Ye Faithful' and in other compositions as well. Professor Allen da Silva of Scottish Church College with whom Prof. Bertram da Silva had a duet also assisted them. Solos were sung by Ronaan Roy and Anindya Sundar Paul, both singing bass and Professor Christina Mirza herself.

The December concerts would essentially be a Christmas programme that would trace the Christmas story with narration and the choir singing carols. The choir also sang other western classical pieces like Beethoven's 'Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee' and others like 'In Excelsius Deo', and other J.W. Peterson compositions.

After the concert at the auditorium, the other concerts were held in the college chapel as it had better acoustics and atmosphere was best suited for choral music. The choir performed at two valedictory functions of the college as well. When asked about his experiences and memories in the choir, basso Ronaan Roy said, "We had a ball. There were lots of experiences-like Prof. Mirza's 'Ave Maria'. Very few people can pull that off and she did. A stroke of genius was that the bassos had one sentence underpinning it between stanzas. I listened intently, so I knew when to come in, but Anindya da was the only one who consistently pitched it correctly. So I used to flick his finger (I stood next to him) and he'd sing and we'd all follow. It worked marvellously. Jonathan was a rock. He really slogged us through some tough stuff and did much more work than he was credited with. He basically taught us everything most ways. Its difficult for the choir to be what it was without Jonathan. Oh yeah, Prof. da Silva used to hug each one of us before the concert."

St. Xavier's is the only college that can boast of having had a proper conventional four-part choir of the bass, tenor, alto and soprano. Someone like me would probably lament at the choir's mere three-year existence (2004 - 2006) owing to the new semester system, which is unable to accommodate the choir in its curriculum. In spite of its short life, the college choir has left a priceless euphonic legacy.

- Ishita Chakravarty
BA. 2nd Yr. English (Hons.)