New beginnings

An abundance of talent, mature vocal contributions and the one aim to be par excellent – this would possibly be the best way to describe the newest four-part male choral group in town. The Saints, will be making their debut performance in the near future, bringing to you a range of renditions belonging to various genres of music. They are scheduled to take the stage on October 12 and 13 at 7.30pm, at The Russian Cultural Centre, with The Renaissance, a beautiful evening of music by the choir as well as some enchanting performances by guest artistes.

The Saints is an off-shoot of "Choro Bendicte," which was a choir comprising past students of St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena, trained by the late, musical great Lylie Godridge. Since the group disbanded, a keen, musical minded few of them, decided to continue the joy of singing, and set about to establish a choral group of Four Part Harmony. "We knew we needed more people, so we thought we would look beyond our own school, and so we invited a number of other talented individuals from other Saint schools. We were thinking of a name to call ourselves, and we thought how more apt than the ‘Saints’!" said Bosco Fonseka, the Choir Director. And so, the choral group came into being, singing Four Part Harmony, according to scripted music.

"This will be our first performance as a group, and we got together at the latter part of last year. The choral group is made up of a dedicated, mature group of professionals, and our ambition is to become the best Four Part all-male choral group in the country," says Nalake Fernando, president of the Saints. Their repertoire includes the evergreen songs of yesteryear, songs from Broadway musicals, famous choruses that lend themselves to lusty renditions, Black American spirituals, Barbershop favourites the Latin classics, revival of popular Sinhala and Tamil songs and Christmas Carols.

The voice training is by the great tenor cum trainer Francis D' Almeida, while Suren Abeysekera, who is comparatively young in age, but has a wealth of experience in training, conducting and singing, handles the conducting for the choral group. Ryanthi Kumarasinghe, is the accompanist for the group. The highlight of the Saints, who are striving to make their mark at the performance, will be its harmonious blending of voices, disciplined presentation and increasing versatility. The show will also showcase guest performers such as Francis D' Almeida, Sweet Inspirations, the Past Bridgeteen's Choir and their own Denzil Perera and Bosco Fonseka, whose Everly Brothers-type harmony will leave you with nostalgic memories of yesteryear.

The Saints plan to donate part of their proceeds to a worthy cause, that being the "Achievers," an organisation which works with differently-abled children, located at Park Road, Colombo 5.