Christmas carol concert inaugurated in city

MUMBAI: In the last week of November, the ether outside the NCPA was fractured by gunshots. In the ensuing week, the arts complex held its breath, and on December 5 it released it in grateful exhalation.
At what was the inaugural Christmas carol concert of the season, the Experimental Theatre was packed to the arc-lights by a city relieved to escape the trials outside and recoup its equanity through tidings of peace, joy and hope.
The Cantata Choir's performance of solemn and sanguine Christmas songs was a cathartic experience for most people, who responded to familiar compositions with accented energy. "After the concert, people came up to me and said the performance brought back the joy of the season,'' said conductor Olga Collaco. However, not entirely forgetting the week gone by, the choir altered the end-piece `We Wish You A Merry Christmas' to wish everyone a `peaceful season' instead.
With Mumbai's festivities on an ebb-many parties and dances jettisoned-and a pall of gloom still hanging, carols promise to be the restorative the city so desperately needs. Ticket sales to this weekend's Festival of Festive Music, the Stop-Gaps choral group's annual carol outing, corroborate this. A week ago, tickets to the programme were almost sold out. "We're looking to bring back a little cheer to Mumbai,'' said Alfred D'Souza, conductor of Stop-Gaps, who recalls a parallel scenario in December 1992, when a concert scheduled for the day the riots broke out was not cancelled, but deferred to a later date by popular demand.
This year, the Stop-Gaps will trumpet its 25th anniversary with a three-day run of 15 ensembles that don't just recite Christmas narratives in multi-tonal, multi-lingual lyric, but also employ dance, mime and percussions. Some of the participants are The Living Voices, The Harmonics (Chennai), St Cecilia's Junior Choir (Pune), The Happy Home & School for the Blind, Salvation Singers and Victory Chorus Line.
While the groups began practising carols months ago, some of them incredibly find their compositions relevant to the prevalent mood. In `Christmas Is Coming', Ronit Chaterji, of St Xavier's College group Good Vibrations, has composed a song advocating a change of heart, a fitting message for the city today. "Christmas is the last chance we have in the year to heal our old wounds,'' he said.
D'Souza's own `Plenty For Us All' approaches man's disregard for his neighbour and choruses the reminder that there's enough room and resources for everyone.