In the backdrop of an all Thomian choir "The Revelations" winning gold at the 2008 World Choir Games, it was a pleasant and wonderful evening of entertainment at The Music's Always There performed by a group of present Thomians directed by Vinod Senadeera, at the Mt. Lavinia Hotel ballroom. I must admit I did not expect a performance of this standard when I decided to take my son to a performance that his schoolmates were involved in.
The show began with a performance by a group of guitarist playing music from the present and yesteryear, to a full house. After that, many performances of the choir and solos and duets, carefully planned and choreographed, filled the rest of the evening – with a band of present Thomians providing the music. Unlike a normal school choir's performance, the repertoire included toe taping songs and music that I am sure enthralled the young and the older audience.
The costumes and the choreography, were painstakingly done and as always there will be the odd critic or two, for a school performance however, it was truly amazing.
Some of the performers were as young as 6 years of age, and the regulation of school haircuts were altered to suit this public occasion.
The programme as a whole kept me captivated throughout the evening.
I guess it was the untiring effort of the director (probably supported by a few old Thomians and parents) which helped make the event a success. I sincerely wish I had people with such dedication during my time in school. As in everything, there's always a 'but' – I was seated on the left flank and we did sometimes experience a delay in the sound of some of the instruments played by the band and a few of the younger guys were a little stiff in their dance steps or sometimes concentrating too much on them or even somewhat nervous.
The one thing I saw clearly though was passion – in the performers, in the director and in all who were involved in the show. This proves what I always believed in – 'hard work' by itself gets you nowhere but 'passion' takes you along way.
All said and done, it was a marvellous show by the boys and I walked away proud that the school with the reputation of moulding an all-round personality, had raised the bar.
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