When this Chennai choir made a mark at Kala Ghoda Festival

This art district in south Mumbai is known for preserving and promoting the local heritage and culture. And its annual fest, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, is where participants from across the globe descend and turn it into a sort of global artists’ village. So, when there’s an invitation to perform at the festival come by, you neither think twice about accepting it nor put forth any demands.But the LEAP Boundary Breakers, a choir from Chennai, was very clear about one thing — if they were to perform at the festival, they would prefer performing at the prime time in the final weekend of the festival. “We stated that in our proposal and three months after submitting our proposal, we heard back positively from the Kala Ghoda team,” shares Srinivas Krishnan, the founder and artistic director of the choir. Now, the choir is back in the city after its performance at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival recently.
Sharing more details about the choir’s performance there, Srinivas says, “Just the fact that most of us had to wake up at 2.30am to catch an early flight and last out the whole day to give two performances — one at 10am at Piramal Gallery and another at 5.45pm at Kala Ghoda Festival — was an experience in itself. Every member gave total attention all through, showing their sense of teamwork given that we had barely 20 minutes to run a sound check. And when the crowd started cheering us during the song, we felt very happy for the children,” he recollects. The group has been doing quite well since its formation, performing at various prestigious events. “It has secured invitations from the World Bank, Columbia University, the Ray and Maria Stata Center at MIT, Berklee NYC Power Station (where artists including Lady Gaga, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel have performed), and Mary Baldwin University. The team has performed ‘live’ in concert with AR Rahman and his KM Conservatory, at IIT Madras, United Economic Forum, DakshinaChitra, Amir Mahal, Theosophical Society, Stella Maris College and now, at Kala Ghoda Festival.”
The idea behind the group’s formation doesn’t just stop at making good music, says Srinivas. “LEAP is an acronym for Leadership Engagement through Artistic Performances. We wanted to introduce world music and dance as a medium to bring in creativity, teamwork and build good attention span in the lives of youths and adults. The core members are Deborah Thiagarajan, Shvetha Jaishankar, K Kalyanasundaram, P Suresh, Bhairavi Jani, and Atma Iyer apart from me being the founder and artistic director and none other than AR Rahman as the mentor of the group,” says Srinivas and signs off.