Harmony with audience participation

“Listen To Your Heart” sang the all-female award-winning choir of “Soul Sounds” at the Lionel Wendt Theatre on Sunday, 15th June 2014. The concert was part of their celebration of being together for ten years. “Soul Sounds” was the first Sri Lankan choir to win at an international choir competition when they won at the “Eistedfedd” in Wales.  This year, they showed their versatility by singing in different genres such as Gospel, Jazz and now Pop. More concerts are lined up.

They started the concert with a bang as they sang, “Tonight is what it means to be young”. The costumes by Jojo echoed the Eighties with some singers sporting mini-skirts and wearing tights. The hairstyles also were a reminder of the period as they were very elaborate.  The stage movements were effective as the singers moved easily on stage and also came down and sang in the aisles. The performers had individual mikes(a difficult task for a choir) but they harmonized well.

The 22 members of the choir sang “Where do Broken Hearts Go?”, the Whitney Houston favourite, and the high notes were well taken.  “You know our love was meant to be…”they sang. The Madonna hit, “Material Girl” was well rendered and the young women seemed to epitomize the lyrics. “True heaven is a place on earth” sang the choristers and the song by Belinda Carlisle meant more movement  on stage as they sang together.

Next came the Roxette number “It must have been love but it’s over now.” The plaintive words were given new life by Amandhi Caldera the soloist. The last song before the interval was the Michael Jackson hit “Thriller” and the movements of the singers were suitably scary.
After the interval, the singers stood in the aisles and sang “Radio Gaga”, finally getting on stage, raising hands and clapping as they sang the Queen hit, “I Want to Break Free”.

The choristers had changed their costumes and wore black jackets with lapels highlighted by silver buttons and fitting black pants to match.
“Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” the song by “Starship” was next and once again, it was a vibrant rendering.

Then came the mournful “No More I Love You” and the girlish voices were suitably matched to the song. “We don’t need another hero” by Tina Turner was another Eighties’ hit given new life by the choir. Gloria Estefan’s song “Rhythm is Gonna Get You” was sung and repeated as an Encore at the end of the show. The final song was “Livin’ On a Prayer” and director Soundarie and “Soul Sounds” said that they wished to say a Special Thank You to “The Lord above, who continues to watch over us and bless us abundantly”.

The musicians were Soundarie on piano, Sureka Amarasinghe on keyboard/flute, Revel Crake on guitar, Nilantha Ariyaratne on bass, Christo Prins on drums and Guyrika Weerasinghe on percussion.

Comments from the audience

Sunil de Soysa - “The show was absolutely fantastic.  They have improved tremendously since I last saw them two years ago.”

Nicky Ferdinand - “The concert was absolutely fabulous. There are no words to describe it.”

Shyamala Gomez - “The show was fabulous. The costumes were lovely.  There was a lot of energy in the show.”

Rod Hobbs - “I thoroughly enjoyed the show.  The quality of the singing and the dancing were far better than I expected.  There was also a great selection of songs.”

Odile Melder - “The concert was exceptional. Outstanding. Today, they were classy.”

Michael Sathasivam - “I sing with ‘Voiceprint’. The show was very well executed. It was the first time I’ve seen “Soul Sounds” sing with individual mics. It takes a lot of effort. You have to control the voice quality rather than just singing. Very methodical and well planned in terms of exits and stage presence.”

By Sirohmi Gunesekera
Pics by Nisal Baduge