For the Reckord | School choirs show mastery of classical music

When Rebecca Newman-Chung, a Campion College fifth-former, said to me, “Joining the school choir turned me on to classical music,” she might have been speaking for the scores of young people involved in two school concerts that took place within days of each other last week.

The first was hosted by the Chapel Choir of Campion College, which performed on Wednesday at Sts Peter and Paul Catholic Church, Old Hope Road. Rebecca, who has been a performing member of the choir for four of the six years since she joined, is its current president.

The second was hosted by the Kingston College (KC) Chapel Choir which sang at the University Chapel, Mona, on Sunday. With just about two dozen youngsters involved in the Campion concert and more than 100 singing and playing instruments at the KC event, the latter show was huge compared to the former, but innate talent and love for ‘art’ music (as opposed to pop music) was evident in both sets of performers.

Also enjoyed by their respective audiences was the groups’ characteristically Caribbean enthusiasm for movement – swaying, bouncing, shifting on the spot, etc – that was evident during some of the livelier songs. The ease and energy of the movements might have led patrons to the view that the young people were also good reggae dancers, but who could have guessed from her on-the-spot dancing that the petite Rebecca had a black belt in martial arts?

Under the baton of conductor Randall Campbell, the 26-member Campion choir performed the concert’s centrepiece item, excerpts from Franz Joseph Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass (along with other shorter pieces), in the first half. In the second half, they delivered a potpourri of mainly well-known songs.

great singing

The three movements selected from the mass – the Kyrie, Gloria, and Agnus Dei – were generally quite lively, and the voices of the choir were enhanced by four guest soloists. Two were young women: Sashekia Brown, a high soprano trained at Northern Caribbean University, and Brittany Graham, contralto, trained at Mico. The other two were male veteran singers: tenor Carl Bliss and bass Franklin Halliburton. All received enthusiastic applause from the audience. However, I’d say that the loudest applause came later when Halliburton sang the humorous The 12 Days After Christmas, a spoof on the popular The 12 Days of Christmas.

There was a pleasing variety to the programme. Along with the big names like Haydn, Mozart ( Ave Verum Corpus, soothingly sung by the choir), and Handel ( Let the Bright Seraphim, sung solo by Brown), there were composers who most listeners of Christmas music might not recognise – though they would certainly know their songs.

I refer to the composers of popular hymns and carols like Once in Royal David’s City (Henry John Gauntlett), Away in a Manger and Jingle Bells (David Willocks), The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy (Jacqueline B. Hairston), and Joy to the World (John Rutter).

While Campion’s smaller concert was delightful, the bigger KC concert was wonderful. And it had even more variety.

Performing along with KC’s 40-strong choir (well-supplied with adequate numbers of trebles, basses, altos, and tenors) were numerous instrumentalists and scores of singers. The former group included organist Livingston Burnett and a small band with two violins, a cello and a flute; the National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica Brass Ensemble; and the Church of the Ascension Handbell Choir.

The official singers were soprano Nomali Lumsden-Campbell (a lecturer in music at The Mico University College) and the 40-odd-strong St Hilda’s Diocesan High School Choir. But mention must be made of another set of enthusiastic singers for the carol Hark! The Herald Angels Sing – the audience itself.

Coincidentally, the centrepiece of this concert was another Haydn mass, The Missa Brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo. Like Campion’s mass, the Kingston College mass lasted around 15 minutes, and while Campion offered excerpts, the KC mass had been kept brief (hence ‘Missa Brevis’) because Haydn wrote it to be used in actual church services, not primarily for public performances.

As is usual with Jamaican groups performing ‘art’ music, the more solemn music comes in the first half of the concert and the lighter fare in the second. KC’s merrier music included Jamaican items – Noel Dexter’s arrangements of Hosanna de Baby Bawn Oh and Something in My Heart and the Fab 5 Grub Cooper song Glory to God.

An indication that the patrons enjoyed themselves was the fact that they were almost as lively during some of the pieces as the bona fide performers. While I didn’t see the governor general actually dancing, he smiled a lot.