KODAIKANAL INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, ORCHESTRA, BAND AND CHOIR

QUALITY PERFORMANCES BY GIFTED STUDENTS

A great variety of music, from western classical, to pop, was heard at the concert by the Kodaikanal International School, held at the St Mary's Degree College Auditorium, on the 23rd of February 2019. 

And, the music was performed at such a respectable degree of proficiency by all the students, in all the different formats, that it was only because we were in the audience and could see for ourselves that they were young students playing and singing, that we could believe our ears.

Not only did we in the audience marvel at the musical talent on display at the concert by the students of Kodaikanal International School (KIS for short) and the dedication of their music teachers who, I am sure, played a huge part in training, inspiring and nurturing them, but also, at the school, for giving so much importance and encouragement to the teaching and learning of music, and providing excellent facilities for the pursuit of music, along with academic curriculum. 

We also had to marvel at the school administration, 

to decide to make the trip to Hyderabad. What a logistic feat it must have been for the school administration to arrange for the transportation of all the student musicians and staff, and instruments and equipment from Kodaikanal! 

Kodaikanal is only accessible by a three-hour journey by road from Madurai. They travelled to Madurai, and then to Hyderabad, and back from Hyderabad to Madurai, just to perform for us in Hyderabad! And for us in the audience it was a marvellous experience!   

 

The evening's performance began with the School's advanced orchestra, the KIS Orchestra, of around forty musicians conducted by Sarah, that played a classical French love song, Plaisir D’Amour "The pleasure of love" by composed by Giovanni Martini in 1784, and arranged by Robert Longfield. The piece sounded familiar in some parts as one heard snatches of the song Can't help falling in love that was famously sung by Elvis Presley amongst others. it was good to hear a good orchestral sound from the young orchestra which some teachers also playing in it.

The next piece played was the Johnny Appleseed Suite by Robert Kerr, a suite in three movements and we heard traces of the song Edelweiss from the musical The Sound of Music in this. The orchestra had a good seven or eight-minute workout to show their skill in creating graphic pictures where we could actually imagine the goings-on in the movements entitled, Johnny's planting song, Johnny's prayer and the final Johnny's hoedown, in the hoedown, the fiddlers made the fairground dance music come alive.

 

The next few items on the card were the students performing solos. And whether it was young Mr Jai Mohan Malik on Saxophone showing good tone, clarity and technique on Palotas and Friss by Josef Balogh or Nina Hariharan, who sang the song 'Secret Love" in a naturally melodious voice and handled the rarely heard and difficult-to-sing introduction really well, or Miss Eojin Kim who flawlessly played the Allegro from Handel's Sonata in F on Flute, and made a not-so-simple piece of music sound simple. And Marie Chalard, who played the Boccherini Minuet on clarinet with first-rate articulation. We noted that wherever a keyboard was required, one of the music teacher's, Edwin, accompanied them. Edwin, actually accompanied all the formats of all the various musical items, wherever required, throughout the evening.

The next few items on the programme, were quartets. The Clarinet Quartet played the Rondo from Mozart String Quartet No.1 K.80, The musicians, Aryan Patel, Gershom Nirmal, Marie Chalard and Wangden Dhondup were perfectly precise and the Rondo was good to listen to. They next performed an excerpt from Mvt.1 in G major by W A Mozart 'A Little Night Music' – it was a skillful performance of a beautiful piece of music and it was particularly gratifying to hear the bass clarinet giving depth to the quartet and providing the counterpoint. The Flute Quartet - Seunghyun Im, Sharanjay Pradhan, RaeHannah Balaraju, Eojin Kim, played a short but pretty tune in perfect harmony 'Wild Roses' by Zdeňka Horáčková.

The Deccan Voices conducted by Joe Koster, also the accompanist on piano, rendered an enjoyable version of Freddie Mercury's Bohemian Rhapsody.

The KIS Advanced Choir of about forty student voices and directed by Christina, took the stage to render two tunes from La La Land, 'Another Day of Sun', and 'Someone In The Crowd', by Jay Althouse, arranged by Alan Billingsley, the young choir performed both these tunes creditably.

 

The conductor Christina, who had sung in the Deccan Voices while she lived in Hyderabad, then invited the Deccan Voices to join the KIS Advanced Choir to sing 'City of Stars' from La La Land. 

And the Deccan Voices sang one more song along with the KIS Advanced Choir, the song was the famous Jazz standard 'I'm beginning to see the light'. The combined choir sounded very good, with the mature voices of the Deccan Voices adding depth and volume to the rendering of these songs.     

The KIS Advanced Band, a forty-student band of horns and wind instruments with bass percussion, xylophone and drums, conducted by Joel, played a set of tunes from the Computer animated movie The Incredibles composed by Michael Giacchino and arranged by Jay Bocook.  

The KIS Advanced Band also did Arabian Dances by Roland Barett, in which the clapping sequence came out so well, and the soundtrack highlights of the American superhero film Guardians of the Galaxy, arranged by Michael Brown. All the three of the items were a treat to the ear, and, to see the students enjoying playing these tunes with as much restraint as enthusiasm was a wonderful experience.

And that was the end of a delightful evening of music by the KIS students. It was an evening well spent... in a world of music created by schoolchildren who played and sang with talent, discipline and maturity, like professionals.

The whole organisation of this event was done with discipline and professionalism, and the leader Paul Jaikumar from KIS, who proposed the vote of thanks at the end thanked Joe Koster, The Hyderabad Western Music Foundation, and the Deccan Voices, amongst others, for making this possible, however Joe Koster gave credit where it was due, and gave Paul Jaikumar, Joel, conductor of the Advanced Band, Sarah, the conductor of the Advanced Orchestra, Christina, conductor of the Advanced Choir and the pianist Edwin, memento's and thanked them for coming to Hyderabad and bringing and taking care of the talented KIS students.

Photographs: Joe Koster