Heavenly voices

on the most popular choirs in the country that have been in big demand this month.

Christmas is round the corner and for the whole of this month, choirs all over the country "" the many amateur ones and the few professional groups "" have been busy singing carols in churches, hotels and auditoriums to herald the nativity season. As with other X'mas icons, there's both a religious and a secular aspect to choirs and carol-singing.

Many Indian churches still continue with the tradition of going to the houses of the faithful. In cities like Kolkata and Mumbai which have large Christian populations in concentrated pockets and small churches to serve these, choir groups go around in the evenings singing. That's difficult in Delhi, where the community is scattered all over the NCR.

At Cathedral Church of the Redemption, Denis Lall, the priest-in-charge, informs that the proactive Tamil choir has found a way to reach out to the 600 families which comprise the parish. "They've formed neighbourhood choirs, which perform at homes. This year, they performed at 120 homes."

Then there are the many Christian, Western institutions which have more formal choirs. For example, the Delhi Christian Chorus, which has been around since 1965; the New Delhi YMCA choir which puts up a "festival of choirs" before Christmas every year; and the American Embassy School's Choraliers, which comprises not just students but also parents, teachers, friends... anyone good enough.

But by far the most celebrated of these is the choir of the Dr Graham's Homes School in Kalimpong. The performances by the students at St Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata, and lately, fundraising concerts at various city clubs have become eagerly-awaited fixtures in the city. The children have ventured further afield "" they were in Delhi some time ago and earlier this year, a 31-member team did a quick tour of the UK.

Lastly, professional choral groups for whom the impetus is musical more than religious, but which are much in demand for singing carols during X'mas. Instances of these would be the Calcutta School of Music in Kolkata whose annual concerts around Christmas include sacred music.

Mumbai has, among others, the Stop Gaps Choral Ensemble, by a cultural academy of the same name, which sings at various churches all over the city all this month; and in Delhi, there's the Capital City Minstrels (CCM).

Set up in 1994 by Zohra Shaw, CCM is a motley crowd comprising Indians and foreigners, the old and the young, amateurs and professionals. Sapiene has been in India since February and was part of the local choir back in Germany.

There's also Justin McCarthy, the American Bharatnatyam guru who's also a trained pianist, and Anando Mukerjee, who's building up a career as an operatic tenor in London. Mukerjee started off as a 15-year-old at the CCM when it started and he's now back to lead the choir as lead singer.

"Anyone who can sing can join us," says Deepika Erasmus, president, who joined CCM a few years ago. "Some of us didn't even read music when we joined, but we learn."

The CCM choir does its spot of Sing Noels, carols in English, Latin, Hindi and so on, but its repertoire also includes opera, folk, ballet and jazz. The Delhi Christian Chorus too has a classical section in their concerts "" works of great composers as Handel, Schubert, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Brahms.

Lately, of course, the scene at the CCM has been enlivened by the presence of Gabriella Boda-Rechner, a Hungarian music teacher who conducted the children's choir of the Paris opera for four years before coming to India last year.

In the past one year, she's started, or breathed life into, no less than eight choirs like the Opera Choir of Neemrana, the Mozart Children's Choir, the Vasant Valley School Choir, the Delhi Chamber Choir and so on.

Among others, she'll also be conducting a Christmas Concert with her two sons who too are professional musicians "" the older Marouan Benaddallah, a pianist, and the younger, Yanis, a singer.

But whatever be the choirs' impetus, secular or religious, there is something about carols and the voices of a choir rising in harmony that encapsulates the spirit of Christmas, of festivity and holy cheer. The full pews of the Cathedral Church, where the CCM performed earlier this week, seemed to bear this out.