Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

Musical celebrations
Ishani Ranasinghe meets the director cum producer of Pop, Rock and all that Jazz, Ruwani Seimon to find out more about her show
“All my students will be a part of the concert,” says Ruwani Seimon adding that there will be some guest performances. Celebrating her tenth year as a choral director, Ruwani’s choir has been in existence since 1996. “During the past eight years we have presented many concerts that were a hit with the audience,” she adds. As for her students she is full of praise for them. Despite their term tests and grumbling parents, “they still come for practices and the dedication they show is amazing.”

Admitting that she can be very strict at times with her students she adds that at the same time she is a very good friend to them, “they are free to talk to me about anything.”

Going back in time she talks about their last show two years ago, Gotta Sing Wanna Dance. “That show was so vast we didn’t think we could grow, basically we didn’t know where to go,” says Ruwani with a smile. Over the years they have exhausted Broadway and Classical, and this time they wanted to do something different. “So we did a big turnaround and thought of trying our hands at pop music.”

With over ninety-five taking part in the show she promises Pop, Rock and all that Jazz to be huge, catering to every age group. “I promise that the production will be very much different to what you usually see and it will be slick,” she adds with a lot of enthusiasm.

They will take you to the 50s and bring you to the present, with even the genre including jazz, rock’n’roll, country and western, disco, light rock, Latin, reggae and ballads. “We also have an entire segment on fusion,”says Ruwani which will be a special feature of the show.

“We are hoping to introduce new choir arrangements of Sri Lankan folk music such as Dhanno Budunge and Jaya Mangala Gaatha, she says adding that the music arrangements for this will be done by Mahesh Denipitiya. Explaining that it is rather hard to find contemporary music arrangements, Ruwani says that she did bulk of the arrangements.

Being both the producer and the director of such a show she says, “I must admit this is very tough and tiring but at the end of the day its pure satisfaction.”

The accompaniment for the show will be by Surekha Amarasinghe on piano, Mahesh Denipitiya on keyboard, Billie Fernando on drums and Nadeeka Jayawardena on Bass Guitar while the choreography will be by Azlan Bathusha.

Pop, Rock and all that Jazz will take to stage on August 13, 14 and 15 at the Lionel Wendt Theatre. The main sponsor of the production is Singer Hi-Fi and the co-sponsors are Hutch and National Development Bank. The electronic media sponsors are ETV and E FM while The Sunday Times is the print media sponsor.

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