The annual Christmas
concert at the Menezes Braganza main hall will be held on December 5 with the
orchestra Camerata Goa performing traditional Christmas Carols including a
lovely Christmas medley.
Dr. Luis Dias, Project Director, Child’s Play (India)
Foundation the organiser of the annual event said, “ We are excited that this
year, our Child’s Play Chorus will be joined by the Archangel Voices of St
Michael’s Church, Anjuna. We hope this is the beginning of a wonderful
collaboration with other choral groups in Goa. The choir is directed by our
Choral Director Raj D’Pietro Fernandes. We love his energy and enthusiasm for
music and I hope the audience will enjoy the programme he has put together”.
For this concert he said there would be around 50
participants. He conceded that it was always a mammoth task to put together a
large event with children and musicians coming from different parts of Goa. Dr
Dias said, “ With children, one has to work around their busy academic and
extra-curricular activities. Many of our students are now adults with full-time
jobs or children in crucial academic years. Attending rehearsals becomes
increasingly difficult for them. Transport is also a big issue in Goa and we
have to work with these odds. Despite these obstacles, I think we have put
together a good programme this year.”
The group will be performing next at the ‘Carols on the
Hill’ at the Museum of Christian Art in Old Goa on December18.
The foundation offers training in all the orchestral string
instruments (violin, viola, cello, double-bass), recorder, flute, piano and
choir.
The choir, The Child’s Play Chorus is made up of children
not just from the music education project but from the wider community. They
receive inquiries almost everyday from parents wanting to enrol their children
in the choir. Similarly, Camerata Goa is also a community project, and has been
around since 2013. It has children and teachers from Child’s Play and musicians
from the community. They welcome musicians of all ages to join the choirs and
orchestra. If a child wants to learn music, they want to make it possible.
Dr Dias said they have exciting possibilities opening up,
hopefully soon, in the much-neglected woodwind and brass disciplines of
orchestral music-making. He said, “ We do have a recorder and flute division
but I have wanted to expand this further to the other members of orchestral
wind instruments since our inception”.
He said the foundation was interested in exploring musical
collaborations with schools or children’s charities. He went on to say that
school choirs and orchestras were a wonderful way for institutions to bring
their students together, musically and they would love to start new projects
across Goa.
He said his dream was to turn the current orchestra
(Camerata Goa) into a professional one. The vision, he said, was to have Principal
Chairs for each ‘voice’ or section in the orchestra which would be funded by a
corporate or philanthropic body.
This, he explained would have many benefits beyond
orchestral music-making. For one, it would facilitate chamber music concerts
performed by various combinations of professional musicians within the
orchestra. Besides this he went on to say that it would build a strong
foundation for music education at both, the grass-roots and at the conservatory
level. So for example, a Principal Cellist, whose chair is funded by a
philanthropic organisation or a corporate house, would also teach not just
music students but also train hopefully a cohort of future music teachers.
He went on to say that having a professional orchestra
within a music education setting would be a shot in the arm for concert life in
Goa, it would raise the bar of not just music-making but also music education
from the lowest to the highest level. It would, he said, also show Goan youth
that studying and playing a music instrument can be a viable career choice and
path and inspire coming generations to make this choice early in life, and get
a world-class level of training right here. This is the dream, certainly his
goal as they approach the significant 15-year milestone of their existence in
2024. He expressed his confidence that the shore in Panjim would evoke a very
good response from the people of Panjim and surrounding areas.
