CLASSICAL CHORDS HOLD AN INCREASING LURE FOR YOUNGER GOANS TOO
By Frederick Noronha

PANJIM, Sept 17: Sylvia Araujo is half-way to becoming an engineer. But she finds a certain mathematical beauty in the notes emerging out of choral music. "I sing other (types of music) too. But choral music is really something," she gushes.

Nerissa Britto is studying to be a lawyer. Dynisia Juliao is a Electricity Department junior engineer. Nigel Mendonca is working to become a civil engineer, as are Francis Fernandes and Antonio Dias. In between their studies and work all spend hours practising choral music, the roots of which go back centuries in Goa.

"I think there could be a lot more youngsters who would find this field interesting," Sylvia Araujo said. "But they need to discover their own love and talent for it."

These youngsters are part of the Goa Choral Symphony, a group formed by Kala Academy's Spanish guitar teacher Alberto L.A. Barreto of Santa Cruz. Last weekend, the three-year-old symphony put up its third major concert at Panjim.

From the Konkani invocation Noman Morie by Carlos E. Ferreira to age-old favourites like The Sound of Music and a Beatles medley, Madonna's Evita and mandos, these youngsters showed a versatile range.

It also included -- interestingly -- a negro spiritual, guitar and piano solos, four Portuguese songs, late maestro father Lourdino Barreto's theme song Goa, the Latin Ave Maria, Handel's Hallelujah Chorus and an rousing Israeli folk song called Tchum Biri Tchum.

"We have introduced pop, and sung it in a classical style. That's what people appreciate better nowadays. I want to improve on this choir and showcase both popular and classical music," says the Goa Choral Symphony music director and founder Barreto.

Barreto -- like many Goans did -- went deep into music while studying in the seminary. On opting out of plans for priesthood, he devoted his energies to his "first love", music.

In the 1980s, he had a prize-winning choral group that took part in carol and mando contests. His love for the Spanish guitar led him to an LTCL, or Licentiate, Performer of the Trinity College of Music, London. Today, he claims to be the only guitarist in India to attain such a diploma in the last 15 years.

Barreto stresses the need to "revive and promote" Western and Goan classical music. This is a field which has not got encouragement -- or perhaps been actively discouraged too -- in post-colonial Goa. At the start of a new century, one can see signs that Western music is not facing as much biases as it once did in its cradle in the East.

To Goa goes the credit of initiating the Westernization of India music. Christian converts took to new forms of music with "alacrity", say researchers.

They were the first across India to come in touch with new musical instruments, new musical texture, new forms of vocal music, and new musical genres, says expert on Goan language, literature and music Dr Jose Pereira, currently at Fordham University in New York.

Goa infact was the entrypoint for India for choral music and the concept of harmony in music. (Harmony is the combination of simultaneous notes to form chords, as opposed to melody, the basis of traditional Indian music.)

Choral music is sung by an organized band of singers -- the chorus or choir.

Documents refer to double choir performances in Goa dating back to 1569. In 1663, seven choirs of Goan singers performed an oratoria by Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674), the greatest master of early Italian oratorio, according to Dr Pereira's recent book Song of Goa: Mandos of Yearning.

But why has Goa been losing its edge, as its talent-pool in Western music gets eroded?

Says Barreto: "In the parishes we had a lot of music, choral singing and choirs in the past. Right now, that has come down to a great extent. You hardly find any musicians either (being built from that source)."

At one stage, the church institutions gave a fillip to Western music, which stood Goans in good stead. Many made names for themselves across the globe in this field, including in the world of Bollywood, where Goan names once dominated Hindi filmi music.

Along with reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic, Goans often learnt a fourth 'r' -- the rebbec (violin). But that has changed drastically in an altered socio-political context.

What could be a new cradle for promoting Western music in this region? Says Barreto: "Maybe a body of experts could come together and see how we can improve it. This generation has a lot of good talent. But maybe we lack good and encouraging teachers and proper systems."

Existing institutions are few in number. Not all are enthusiastic about Western music, despite its undeniable popularity and relevance in a world of globalised competition for common skills Barreto, echoing the views of late Maestro Lourdino Barreto, suggests teaching music at the school level.

Barreto also adds that many labour under the view that classical music is "dry, not easy, or too great to achieve". "If we do something to utilise the talent of our youth, they can come up,"
he argues.