Musical evening of pop, rock and gospel hits
For eighty years the St. Thomas’ Preparatory School (STPS) has left its mark through quality education and good discipline. The same could be said of its choir trained to be versatile, not only in music but in the approach to music as a practice for life.
The ensemble is home to talented and energetic youngsters between the ages of 11 to 16 years and provides a platform for these students to express their creativity through music and arts. “I Will Follow, I Will Lead” is an evening of choral music put together by the choir and will be staged from September 7-9 at the auditorium of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, Kollupitiya .
The show looks to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the school. And will showcase the 35 plus choristers, who will each dabble in various genres of music. Earlier this week, we caught up with some of the choristers and also Sanchitha Wickremesooriya, the director of the choir, who gave us a little insight. We find Sanchitha amidst a training session with the choir, at the Sooriya Village in Colombo. The energy on the floor is eminent, as they continue to work on the music, whilst Sanchitha carefully stops the ensemble every now and then, to fix a few minor details in order to achieve perfection.
Shortly after, we sit for a chat in the garden, under the beautifully lit fairy lights of the village. The rest of the choir, continue to practice on their own and the soft notes of the piano resound in the background. Sanchitha explains the basic concept behind the name of the show, is simply a value the school wants to inculcate in its students – if you are to lead, you have to learn to follow.
The Choir. Pix courtesy STPS
“We want them to understand that there are limited opportunities in life and they need be able to follow now, so that when they have to lead, they would have the ability to do so,” he explains. In fact even when it comes to the choir itself, aside from the few accompanying musicians, the other additional instrumentalists are the choristers themselves. “They are controlling the show, from the designing of the artwork to everything else.”
‘I Will Follow, I Will Lead,’ promises an array of Pop, Gospel, Rock and even songs from renowned musicals. The ensemble will also perform several tunes by local artists such as Alien Accent, Sanuka Wickramasinghe, KATCHA, Ridma Weerawardena and Dilan Jayakody.
According to Sanchitha, “the cool thing about this show is that most of the songs are the ones that the choirs in the country don’t often do.”
Sanchitha feels it’s important that his students are exposed to local music at a young age, because “at the end of the day what you teach them in school is what they keep with them for the rest of their lives.” The choristers on the other hand find this to be the perfect opportunity to give back to the school. In fact as Eransha Fernando (14) and Savindu Jayasinghe (13) share, their school taught all of them to develop their skills and come to a good state in life. This is just why the concert means so much to them.
This is Ernasha’s first concert up on stage, but to him the music represents a sense of freedom and that is just why he finds this a comfortable platform to showcase his talents.
Young Savindu talks to us next and shares that aside from singing, he is also a pianist. “I really enjoy playing the piano and singing,” he explains adding that the music has a tendency to soothe him even when he is stressed out.
The Prep choir will also be sharing the stage with different guest choirs each night. The lineup includes Ladies College (7th), Bishops College (8th) & Visakha Vidyalaya (9th). They will also be joined by choristers from the St. Thomas College family of schools namely St. Thomas’ College Mount Lavinia, St. Thomas’ College Bandarawela and St. Thomas’ College Gurutalawa, with a special appearance by The Old Boys Choir of STPS.
They will also be accompanied by Christopher Prins on Drums, Melissa Pereira on Keyboard, Shalintha Rodrigo on Bass, Julius Mitchell as guest Beatboxer and Professor Sujeewa Ranasinghe as guest Esraj Player. The choreography is handled by Ayushka Nugaliyadda and Mihara Jayalath.
As we conclude Sanchitha tells us, he hopes that the show will be an exchange of energies between the students and the audience. The crowd feeds energy to the performers and that’s when they get the best out of the performers and vice versa. “It’s a give and take thing,” he explains.
Tickets are available at the Bishops College Auditorium Office from 9am – 4pm priced at Rs. 2000 a seat.