A scribbler's review

CONCERTAID V - The Peradeniya Singers with Young Professionals - Life Ev'ry voice - Directed by Bridget Halpe - Girls High School, Kandy, July 21 and Lionel Wendt Theatre, Colombo, July 28

Carl MULLER

PERFORMANCE: Having an excellent memory does not help - not when you have to sit for a rough one-and-three quarter hours, listening to glorious music. All I had was my admission ticket marked COM (Complementary - thanks to Ashley and Bridget Halpe who think I'm some sort of a maestro and able to distinguish between C# and Ab).

What would you do? Make sure you have a pen, sit in the middle of a most crowded hall and make that admission ticket (that serendipitously gives you the programme), a little jungle of squiggles and scribbles. Suits me. I can then go home and make sense of it all, or present it at the Queen's laundry and get two shirts.

If you think this is a "review", I'm sorry to mislead you. This is a perahera of scribbles - some of those weird thoughts that I am very capable of entertaining in this thing I call my head... and when I have got all the pieces of the jigsaw into place. I'll breathe a relieved sigh and hope, with some fervour, that my trespass has been forgiven.

And yet, I must do justice to a troupe that almost packed in the Girls High School hall on the evening of July 21 despite, above all things, a surly cloud-filled sky that had begun to look like an atmospheric chintanaya. It had rained havoc on July 20, and the evening of Concertaid V promised us little relief.

Scribble - "Young Singers. Rehearsed to glow. Exceptional tenor voices." That puts item one, "Kalinka," a Russian Folk Song, into a nutshell. Young singers? Well, so many school kids - and let me do them honour:

Sopranos: Shasheema Ambegoda, Tharandiya Amaratunga, Annabelle Drew, Abigail Elisha, Hanako Herath, Michiko Herath, Ayodhni Muthuarachchi, Sidath Nalleperuma, Rushi Perera, Chimithri Ranatunga, Navindri Ranatunga, Sonaly Silva, Eranga Yakandawela.

Altos: Katherine Allen, Dilini Kumarasinghe, Renushi Perera, Niranjalee Rajaratne, Shalini Warusevitane, Wasana Wijewardena.

Tenors: Hasinee Halpe Andree, Harin Deekshan, Chanaka Silva. Basses: Rochana Fernando, Ashley Halpe, Dinuka Jayasuriya, Anthony Newman, Shigeru Okamota, Niranjana Rajaratne. At the Piano: Yuko Terao. Guitarist: Stephen Beling.

There's a scribble here that must find a place: "Harry Potter and his wand has nothing on Bridget and her baton - a true music mover."

Let's take Item Two: Scribble: "Such lively La-la-la's!" That was a four-part chanson, "Je Ne Lo." Now don't ask me what a chanson is. Sounds like one of those stretched sedans the American Mafioso liked to ride in. I remember hearing "Canzone e Danza" long ago. Is a canzone also a chanson? Beats me. As far as I know, a canzone is a lyric form of Italian verse. I've got to ask Bridget, but I won't.

Singing that Beatles number in split unison gave us "Yesterday" as though it told us of all our yesterdays, todays and our tomorrows. Scribble: "No easy game to play. Such verve and feeling. Altos coming in like memories out of the rain. Just the way Lennon and McCartney would have wished it to be."

We come to Item Four. Carl Strommen's "Road Less Travelled". Scribble: "Surely a dream song. Frost comes to mind. "The Road Less Taken" and "Stopping by Woods". Another scribble:

We come to Item Five: "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" by Weldon and Rosamund Johnson and made gloriously extraordinary by the Peradeniya Singers.

Oh, I loved it, for Weldon is no stranger to me even if he conked off three years after I was born. He was really something: The first American Negro to be admitted to the Florida Bar, editor of several collections of spirituals; the man who wrote "God's Trombones"; a poet and novelist. Scribble: "Dreamy to begin with. Voice shifts beautifully styled and executed. Then emphatic resonance."

Sasini Chandrasinghe and Renushi Perera then gave us Skryabin's "Fantasy" on two pianos. Scribble: "There's more to this than going around like Shaw's Black Girl, smashing idols with her knobkerry."

"Fantasy" gives us a wider sphere of life - crushed notes, sweeping chords, ripples, and basses that boom - shovelling all together - sensations, observations, impressions that transcend. Another scribble: "Why do I get this picture of a nightingale and a thorn?"

Item Seven - Vivaldi's "Classic Scat." Scribble: "As scatty as they come and certainly sung to raise mirth." Two sopranos - Michiko Herath and Hasinee Haple Andree as well as alto Renushi Perera. Antonio Vivaldi used to be called the "red-haired priest" and much of his operatic works were lost, but he did give us more than 400 concertos for various instruments and combinations of instruments, and liked to relax with his scats.

Scribble: "Michiko's having a lot of fun. Body language enjoyable."

Item Eight - Ah, an old favourite. George and Ira Gershwin's "Summertime" from "Porgy and Bess." Tra-la-laa, tra-la-lar-la-la-la-laa. Renushi, as first soprano led the others, Michiko and Haasinee, and boy, has she got a power-packed voice.

Scribble: Those brothers Gershwin. What a pair. Brought jazz and popular music into the realms of classical music. "

"Porgy and Bess" came out in 1935. Read Heywood's novel "Porgy" about the Negroes who lived along Catfish Row in South Carolina. Poor Porgy - crippled beggar involved in a murder. The Gershwins gave it all an incredible flamboyance.

In strolls Chopin with Michiko who was going to give us his Barcarolle in F # major. Scribble: "Devil of a key to play on. Black notes like chicken pox.

"Chopin, as you know, excelled during the Romantic Era and nearly all his compositions - preludes, scherzos, waltzes, ballades, etudes, polonaises, mazurkas, nocturnes and this barcarolle are for the piano - which suited Michiko splendidly.

Scribble: Sheer keyboard mastery - tremendous show and no pan. (Does Chopin like the pun on his name?)

Ramirez's "Zamba for You" had the basses encircling the stage in waves, gathering in the trebles, This was followed by that well-known old English air, "Scarborough Fair," very much like "Greensleeves" and something that sounds like as if it lies between a pastoral and a rondeau. Scribble: "The young ones are enjoying their singing immensely. So natural that it is a treat listening to them."

Finally, something to rock home with. Scribble: "Must remember that Weldon Johnson edited a collection of Negro Spirituals." "Elijah Rock really brought the house down. As spirited as the finest Southern Comfort and cornfield sweat.

Scribble: "Rock! Elijah, rock the bed!" What an orgiastic number to have the prophets rocking and rolling. Sally Gilmore, in her role as the West African bride, Tulip, in Oldham's "The Sailor's Return" is small potatoes when compared with "Elijah Rock."

Scribble" Hallelujah! It's coming!" Is this a time to be going? A last scribble: "Wow, wow, woo! Pull the strings Lord! Let us rise!" So I caught a put-put home and that was that. To bridget and Ashley, hearty congratulations. We wait for more.