Saturday, 24 May 2014 00:00
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St. Joseph’s College Colombo has been a pioneer in choral and spiritual music presentation in Sri Lanka since its inception in 1896. In recent times under the baton of Francis Almeida, the Josephian School choir has gone on to perform on the international stage as well, being very well received at performances held in the Holy Land and the Vatican
The Old Joes Choir (the ‘OJC’) was originally formed in 1997 as a meeting place for alumni of St. Joseph’s College who share an undying passion for choral music. A majority of the members have been a part of various college choirs from a very early age and thus are very versatile and experienced in the discipline.
Since then the choir has evolved rapidly and gone-on to build a very strong reputation in Sri Lanka for their innovative compositions and arrangements of classical and contemporary music.
The hallmark of the choir has been to break away from the shackles of choral music having to be presented in a particular traditional form. In fact the OJC was the first choral group in Sri Lanka to fuse a choir singing in full TTBB harmony together with a full-blown rock band and a chamber orchestra side by side, to perform and present anthemic tracks such as Bohemian Rhapsody (by Queen), a Kiss from a Rose (by Seal) and an ‘Ordinary World (by Duran Duran) in a novel and innovative manner at their maiden concert in 1999. This fusion was a result of out of the box thinking and creative talent of Deshan Cooray and Maestro Eshantha Peiris who specially arranged music to suit the choir whilst writing additional scores for the band and the orchestra, something not seen in Sri Lanka at that time.
Since staging its maiden concert ‘Evolution’ in 1999 to rave reviews, the OJC has gone on to stage a series of successful concerts; the most recent ones being ‘Amore – A Heart’s Journey through Music’ staged in 2010 and ‘Open Mic – To Live… to Laugh… to LIFE!’ staged at the Lionel Wendt in June 2013.
These choral productions represent the current thinking of the choir and its Artistic Directors and is a genuine attempt to make choral music accessible to a wider audience base by including dramatic elements, choreography and theatrical aspects to choral music. However, in keeping with its roots which are steeped in classical choral tradition, the OJC never fails to include at least a few major choral master works at all its public performances. The next phase of ‘The OJC Evolution’ is a plan to be represent Sri Lanka at this year’s ‘World Choir Games’ (commonly known as the Choir Olympics) in Riga, Latvia this year.
It’s a road strewn with various financial and logistical challenges which the OJC is confident of overcoming with support from local audiences. To this end, a fund-raiser concert is planned for the last week in June 2014. Expect more details in the coming weeks.
