Philharmonic Choir celebrates birdsong
The Colombo Philharmonic Choir (CPC) presents “Sing on, sweet thrush,” a celebration of birdsong through choral music on Sunday, March 17 at 6 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Scots Kirk, Colombo 3. The programme, featuring Mendelssohn, Stanford, Macmillan, Whitacre, Tin and others, is conducted by Harin Amirthanathan with Dilan Angunawela on piano and Tamara Holsinger on cello.
“We are known for doing big work, a mass, that sort of thing,” said Harin, explaining how the programme was conceptualized. “But for about two years or so I’ve been considering how curated history walks and art exhibitions are becoming popular. And I wanted to do something similar with choral music. Curated choral music.”
Harin says he’s always looking for new music and subjects for programmes. “But with the idea of putting together a carefully curated programme, whatever new music I came across and wanted to try, I started putting in different baskets.”
Nothing concrete presented itself until he came across ‘The Lost Birds’ collection by Christopher Tin soon after it was released in 2022. “I was just wowed by it,” the conductor enthuses. He sought out the music but found that the choral scores had not been released at the time, and the only option was to wait. “In the meantime, with this work at the back of my mind, I started looking for other choral works under the bird theme.”
The starting point for the programme was Vaughan William’s ‘The Turtle Dove’, not only a beloved classic but also one composed by one of the early patrons of the CPC. Other familiar pieces include ‘O for the wings for a dove’ by Felix Mendelssohn, ‘Not one sparrow is forgotten’ by William Hawley and ‘The Swan’ for piano and cello from The Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens.
The programme features an array of choral music from different periods. ‘Sweet Suffolk Owl’ by Thomas Vautor is taken from the early English Renaissance, and while the structure of the piece is very typical of choral music from the time, it is remarkable in that the singers must in fact mimic bird sounds in the running counterpoint harmonies.
“It is actually very difficult,” Harin emphasizes, expressing his admiration for the CPC choristers in mastering the piece. More recent compositions include the ethereal impressionist piece, ‘The blue bird’ by Charles Villiers Stanford, ‘Earth Song’ by Frank Ticheli and ‘Little birds’ (complete with hoots and screeches over a rippling piano) by Eric Whitacre.
The second half of the programme will be the premiere of the choral edition of Christopher Tin’s ‘The Lost Birds’. Subtitled ‘An Extinction Elegy’, the collection is “a musical memorial to bird species driven to extinction by humankind”. At once soaring and weeping, the music is the essence of the bittersweet experience of vicariously enjoying the winged creatures’ glorious freedom in flight while knowing so surely that it shall never be ours. Lyrics for the pieces are taken from the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Sara Teasdale. “These women saw their world transform from a pastoral society to an industrial one – one in which humans, for the first time, began disastrously reshaping the environment. And the poems which I selected depict an increasingly fraught world: first without birds, and ultimately without humans,” Tin writes, in the album notes. Thus the collection is “also a warning about our own tenuous existence on the planet: that the fate that befell these once soaring flocks foreshadows our own extinction”.
Yet music must give hope, and the CPC has chosen to end with ‘Sing on, sweet thrush’, James Macmillan’s musical setting for SATB, cello and piano, of the poem ‘Sonnet on hearing a thrush sing’ by Robert Burns.
This is also the first time the CPC has commissioned an artist to collaborate with them on artwork for a programme. “We thought of Sanath Herath because of his successful exhibition recently,” said Harin, “and he attends all our concerts. He was very receptive to the idea.”
The CPC is in their 69th year and has many more interesting programmes lined up as they go into their 70th anniversary celebrations, said Sharmini Wikramanayake, Hon. President of the CPC Executive Committee. “We have a lot of new young members, and we are doing more new music which is exciting for young people. We’re looking forward to doing more major works as well,” she added.
As part of their drive to inspire more young people to appreciate classical as well as contemporary choral music, CPC reached out to music teachers and sponsored students to attend their concert when they performed in Kandy in November 2023. “We want to cultivate an ear for classical music among the younger generations of musicians,” explained Sharminie. They look forward to performing ‘Sing on, sweet thrush’ in Galle at the Dutch Reformed Church in the Fort on March 23.
Sponsored by the Devar Surya Sena Trust and the family of Chloé de Soysa, the concert is dedicated to the memory of Chloé (1926-2021), an ardent supporter of the Philharmonic and great lover of birds.
Entrance for “Sing on, sweet thrush,” on March 17 is by programme, priced Rs.1500 each.