Celebrating Excellence
Aptly named “Celebrations”, the Revelations Academy of Performing Arts and Creativity staged their annual concert at the Russian Cultural Centre on the 14th and 15th of September.
Having won the All-island Best Performance award in both Music and Speech categories at The Sri Lanka Festival for the Performing Arts in June and August this year, the students treated themselves by reliving the best of their performances at this concert. The audience was gifted with quite an interesting line-up of not only music and drama but also speeches, prose reading and storytelling.
Starting things off with a bang the intermediate choir sang “Hall of Fame”. The energy and passion seemed contagious as one after the other all who took the stage did great justice to their respective items. The two ensembles that bagged the all-island Best Performance awards were the drama troupe for their hilarious enactment of “The Twelve Angry Pigs” which undoubtedly left everyone’s sides aching and the adult female choir that gave a rather thrilling and well-choreographed act of “It’s Raining Men”.
Devishke De Silva’s tale of a robot which won him the Best Comedy award, Swathik Ponnusamy’s drama solo that won Best Dramatic Performance, Dhearthik Ponnusamy’s rendition of “What a Wonderful World” that made him the Most Promising Candidate and the trio sung by Tharuka Jayaratnam, Cheran Jayaratnam and Shean Solomon of “Gotta Get a Message to You” that was awarded the Best Junior Vocal Performance, displayed not only the excellence of the students themselves but also the hard work of the teachers at the academy.
Duets were sung by Tharuka Jayaratnam and Cheran Jayaratnam, and Shyalina Muthumudalige and Sashyani Rodrigo. Other soloists were Diyana Fernando, Tharuka Jayaratnam, Shean Solomon, Rebecca Surenthiraraj, Adalia Ananthan, Sandeep Wickremesekere, Manik Rodrigo, Joanne Jayesingha, Buddvi Senadheera, Shyalina Muthumudalige and Rometh Suriyarachchi.
Other ensembles were “Candle on the Water” sung by the junior choir, “Viva La Vida” sung by another group of intermediates, “Stand By Me” sung by the adult male choir and the junior drama troupe that enacted “Beware: Astronauts”. Time seemed to have run faster than ever as the show came to an end with the adult mixed choir that won the Best Choir award, singing “The Blessing”. The audience would have surely felt blessed to be a part of this celebration of commitment, hard work, and genuine love for the performing arts.
Starting things off with a bang the intermediate choir sang “Hall of Fame”. The energy and passion seemed contagious as one after the other all who took the stage did great justice to their respective items
“Well done!!! Stupendous!!! An amazing performance from an absolutely talented troupe of aspiring musicians. it is exciting to know the abundance of musical and dramatic talent that has been harnessed by the hardworking dedicated group of people who love and have an undying passion for music and performing arts. It has been a “revelation” for our children and the presentation of their skills in concert was a great showcase of the awards won by them at the recently concluded competitions.” said Shyamal Muthumudalige, a parent of the academy.
The academy is headed by Sanjeev Jayaratnam, Director of the multi-award winning troupe ‘The Revelations’. It’s nice to know that learning at the academy is open to anyone from the age of 4 upwards and it is apparent that they take great care in nurturing good values and developing confidence in their students.
They can be contacted on 0777 418 150 or anusha@re
vpe.com. Pic by Kithsiri
De Mel