Well done Royal College Choir! You proved that there is another choir in the country that can carry off the medals with a great team effort. According to the happenings at the Tenth World Choir Games held at Tshwane, South Africa from July 4-14, the Royal College Choir won three Silver Medals in the Mixed Youth, Folklore and Pop categories. And what’s more the Choir created history by being the first government school to participate at a competition such as this.
Kudos to pianist, flautist Sureka Amerasinghe for moulding the young singers into a harmonious collective unit which brought glory to the country and kept the Sri Lankan and Royal College flags flying high.
Her task was not an easy one considering that she had to bring 40 voices to sing together as one voice, Was she overjoyed with the result?
“Most definitely! The 40 boys sang with passion and without exaggeration moved the audiences and judges to tears and earned for themselves standing ovations.
It was a great team effort on the part of the boys, their parents, teachers, musicians and the school, proving that United we stand tall, celebrating diversity too since we had different races and religions singing together as one voice, blending together, lending to each other ending together. Blend, lend, end! Is the Royal College Choir Motto. “We are not just a Choir, we are family”. I’ve heard my present choristers say echoing their predecessors in the past decade and a half that I’ve encountered at Royal College”.
So what is the conclusion to all your experience and your efforts?
“Ten years of voluntary service for the love of music, Royal, the country and humanity has paid off for me, proving that the best of things just cannot be measured by money or material things!”
The College Choir was some of the youngest participants in each category and were flexible enough to master a diverse range of music. In the Youth Category the choir performed a “Sri Lankan Choral Fantasie” which was specially composed and arranged by Surekha Amerasinghe. In the Youth Category which was right up the street of the choristers, they sang songs in different languages while the Pop Category featured songs by Michael Jackson, Bruno Mars, Stevie Wonder and Queen. What was remarkable was that the Choir rehearsed for a few months only and the fact that they won a gold medal and a golden diploma in the Open Category at the Asia Pacific Choir Games in 2017, which was held in Colombo, spurred them with added courage and impetus to do their best. The choreography was handled by Akila Palipane and Dinesha Senaratne. The musical accompaniment was by Sureka Amerasinghe – piano, Devan de Saram – ethnic and western drums, Timal Jayamanne – bass and Priyan Fernando – keyboards.