After two years of an online existence, The Monte music festival
will be back with its 20th edition. This time it will be completely offline.
Scheduled to be held over two days on April 23, 24 at the Chapel of the Weeping
Cross in Santa Monica Convent, one of the most quintessential spaces in Monte
Santo, Old Goa.
This year’s programme will consist of just two concerts which
will present a repertoire of choral music by two Goan choirs: Stuti Choral
Ensemble and the Ektaal Children’s Choir.
Opening the MMF2022
on the April 23 will be the Stuti Choral Ensemble directed by Maestro Parvesh
Java will present a magnificent interpretation of Handel’s Messiah (Part II)
with specially invited soloists Farah Ghadiali, Subin Mathai, Kersi Gazdar and
Rahul Bharadwaj, along with Nadine Crasto and Smit Shah on piano and an
ensemble of violins led by Eshvita Menezes. They have been practising very long
hours every day. Speaking during his ten minute break from practice in the
evening, Parvesh Java said it was just wonderful to make music live after all
that everyone experienced during the pandemic. He said “It is wonderful to make
music together after three years. A lot of people have come together after two
years. The world has changed so much in the past two years and yet we go back
to compositions that are three hundred years old. There are some wonderful
musicians who we shall have the pleasure of listening to. We have been away
from each other and now we come together to perform the Messiah. All this will live
in a room”. He went on to say that a total of eighty performers would be
performing at the same time. People, he said, could expect a lot of loud and
beautiful sound. Speaking of musicians he said “there were young violinists
along with the choir rehearsing and it was all beautiful. We now also have the
Goa University Choir who have joined us and are part of the show. The choir now
has musicians from places as diverse as Shillong, Chennai and Mumbai. This has
been possible because of funding that was available thanks to the Monte music
festival. This is very big for us”.
On April 24, the
Ektaal Children’s Choir directed by Nayantara de Lima Leitão will present a
concert titled Harmony in Hope performed by their junior and senior choirs,
accompanied by Ingrid Anne Nazareth (piano) and Frederika Cotta (violin).
Nayantara Lima Leitão
director of the Ektaal Children’s Choir said the children were raring to go.
She said “It was great performing virtually but now we decided to perform live.
We had several invitations to perform live. We turned down one invitation
during Christmas simply because I did not want to expose children to that
virus. This show is called Hope in Harmony. We are going through times with a
war and hatred being spread in society. If we have harmony, we will have hope”.
She said this was the first time the kids would be performing sacred music.
Nayantara said the Bishop had whetted the music. She said “This is complicated
music and we are doing this with children between the ages 4-7 and 8-14. They
are very young and they have been admirable in training. They have been able to
get the harmony right. These children will be singing songs performed by adults
who are part of world renowned choirs”. She went on to say that since many of
the parents would not be able to watch their children perform live, another
show was scheduled on April 29 at the church in Talegaon.
This
festival will be without a doubt an experience for lovers of choral singing.
