Paragita Choir makes its mark in choral performances

By Gus Kairupan

JAKARTA (JP): What's a choir? A musical instrument, that's what. Of course it differs from a piano, say, or a violin, tuba, marimba or even a collection of all of them put together. But a choir functions just like those instruments, i.e. making music.

Come to think of it, singing -- be it alone or in group -- was once the preeminent form of music making and it still is one of the required subjects if you're going to study, say, piano at a tertiary level institute of music. How well I remember my piano teacher yelling "you must sing, SING!" while I was busy at the ivories murdering Debussy or Beethoven. You want to become a violinist, clarinetist, flautist, timpanist, pianist? Fine. Sign up for choir.

Easy it isn't, especially for the choir leader. How many people are there in the world now? Let's say about five billion, which means that there are about five billion voices as well, different only according to gender of the owners. Even so, there was a time when males wanting to be on the top of the Top 40 of 1512 or thereabouts had to undergo an operation that would stop them functioning as a man, but in return for which their voices would soar into the register that would be the envy of Joan Sutherland or Cecilia Bartoli. In those days, you see, nice girls were not supposed to exhibit themselves on the opera stage, so castrati took over.

But to get back to the art of choir singing. A choir may be an instrument, but the tones it produces do not spring from an object like a bassoon or a flute, piano, or whatever. They are from a physiological process, i.e. breathing, which you regulate to produce them. You let that stream of air vibrate your vocal chords, open your mouth, give your diaphragm an extra push and let go. Not willy-nilly, of course, but according to what the conductor wants you to do and how to go about doing it.

An excellent example was provided last Saturday and Sunday at Erasmus Huis by the Paragita Choir of the University of Indonesia, a group of about 50 choristers who have certainly made their mark both nationally and internationally, placing high at the Netherlands International Choir Festival in the category of mixed small choir in 1995 in Arnhem, and coming first in the folk song category at the International Choir Contest in Miltenberg, Germany in 1996. They also placed third in the choir composition category at that event.

Such laurels put Indonesian choirs (Paragita isn't the only choir that has won kudos abroad) in the front rank of choral singing.

The bulk of the pieces were from English composers. Now there's a country that's at the top of the art and has the oldest existing musical organization in the world, the London Madrigal Society. The songs included compositions and arrangements by Henry Purcell, Frederick Delius, John Rutter and Spencer Curwen, while also on the program were works by non-English composers like Francis Poulenc, Felix Mendelssoh, Zoltan Kodaly, Randall Thompson, Sy Miller and Jill Jackson, and a few others.

My choice went to the first presentation, two English airs titled Fairest Isle (Purcell) and Barbara Allen, both of which were arranged by Spencer Curwen. Also O Magnum Mysterium by French Composer Francis Poulenc and Choose Something Like a Star. The concert also featured conductor and leading soprano, Aning Katamso Amoroso in Mendelssohn's Hear My Prayer with Christina Mandang accompanying the song on the bamboo organ. The program also included a work that featured the choir as a real instrument, i.e. no words, just humming. This was Bach's all too famous Air on the G String (by the way, Bach is not responsible for that title).

Straightness is the feature that marks Paragita's singing, but not in the sense that the songs were mere recitations of words. The singers are students so one does expect them to have a perfect understanding of what they were singing and what the messages were all about. The only piece lacking a bit of the right color would be The Cricket by Charles Beetz. The singing was as perfect as that in the other pieces, but this is a character piece that could have been much more effective if there had been a little bit of juggling around with, say, voice timbre and tone to bring out the humor of the song. Even getting a little off-key at carefully chosen moments wouldn't be out of place.

Felicitations are in order, particularly for Ms. Asmoro who has brought the choir to where it is now -- an internationally recognized singing group. It can't be an easy jog; university choirs are by nature constantly subject to change as students come and go. This means the choir director has to constantly break in new members, which isn't easy either, especially when you come across someone with an outsize ego when it comes to singing, who must be told to conform, or else.

The bright side is that the choir is always rejuvenating. That, of course, is not only beneficial to the group itself, but also to those who have a chance to enjoy their concerts.