City choirs tweak carols for young ears

Karen Vaswani is a graphic designer by day, but after work on December nights, she turns conductor for Mahim’s Victory Chorus Line choir as they practice a range of traditional Christmas carols in completely unconventional styles.

Karen Vaswani is a graphic designer by day, but after work on December nights, she turns conductor for Mahim’s Victory Chorus Line choir as they practice a range of traditional Christmas carols in completely unconventional styles.

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Carolling during the festive season is a “fun, part-time passion” for the 43 members of Victory Line, but they are among the many city choirs tweaking traditional carols to get the new generation to tune in.

“We have a wide repertoire of carols, and dabble in styles such as jazz, blues, classics and pop to make our carols sound different,” said Vaswani (37), a trained pianist and choir conductor.

Founded 23 years ago, Victory Line takes up several corporate and charity shows every December, and has already performed thrice at the Trident this week.

While members of the Victory Line hail only from Mahim’s Victoria and St Michael’s Churches, the Stop-Gaps Choral Ensemble has singers from different parishes in Mumbai.

Its 40 members train rigorously twice a week at the Stop-Gaps Cultural Academy, Mahim, founded by Alfred D’Souza in 1984. “It is important to give a local flavour to one’s music, so I compose new carols in the Indian style, sing to the beats of the tabla and flute,” said D’Souza, who recently penned carols called Aaja re and Play on your flute, thaiya thaiya.

These carols weave in motifs familiar to Indian Christians, such as rangoli, marigolds, jasmines and peacocks. His Song of the gopika speaks of the Virgin Mary innocently resting on the banks of a river.

It was Stop-Gaps that inspired Mimosa Almeida (40) to start the Santacruz Ensemble 18 years ago. This choir reaches out to its local audience at the Sacred Heart parish by singing carols composed in Konkani and Hindi along with the conventional English ones.

“Carols are written to tell the story of Christ, so using local languages is very helpful,” said Samuel Rebello (23), an environmental consultant who enjoys listening to carols.

“But in Mumbai, they are more about exploring various musical styles while spreading the spirit of Christmas.”