The Music Association
The Music Association invited Mr. Rupesh Shinde, a certified Yoga and Pilates Mat Work trainer to conduct a session on ‘Breathing Exercises to Improve Your Voice’. The students were given simple but effective exercises they could easily practice by themselves so as to cleanse their respiratory system as well as strengthen their vocal cords.
Our ex-student Harshvardhan Dikshit, conducted a session on ‘The Art of Making Jingles’. Through an extremely interesting and interactive session, he took us through the entire process of composing jingles for both radio and television. Moreover, he also shared many insights about singing jingles and gave our students very pertinent and practical advice about how to go about contacting production houses, getting demos done and adopting a professional approach when trying to get a break as a jingle singer.
We had the honour of having in our midst award-winning playback singer, Krishna Beura who briefed our students on Sufi music. Not only did he enlighten us about this special genre of music, he also sang some of his famous songs from Chak de India, Namaste London, and Musafir . And for good measure, he also promised to do a concert for us – for free! - an offer we just might take him up on next year. Needless to say, he had our students queuing up for autographs at the end of his talk.
Our next event was a session on Michael Buble`, a Canadian singer and multiple award winner conducted by Dwayne Gamree (FYBA). The month of December saw some of our members ring in the Christmas season at St. Andrew’s with a Carol Singing programme -a tradition we hope to continue for many years to come. The melodious strains of ‘Silent Night’ and ‘O Holy Night’ provided much needed relief to us after the extremely trying times our city had just been through.
A Song Composing contest was next on the agenda. A first at St.Andrew’s, this contest gave our students a golden opportunity to pen their own lyrics and then put them to music. Our judges, Nigel Rajaratnam, Shireen Irani and Dawn Cordo, all ex-students, found it heartening to hear these original compositions - and I think they were a tad envious that such contests were not held in their time! Congratulations to Tisha Mehra (FYB.Com) and Karen Quadros (SYB.Com) who received the first prize, and Sherman Fernandes (TYB.Sc.IT) and Adriel George (TYB.Sc.IT) who came in second. They were awarded cash prizes and the winning lyrics are also published in this magazine.
This contest was soon followed by a session on ‘Body Language and Performing on Stage’ by our ex-student Auxilia Sequeira. With her vast experience on stage performances, She was able to cover a lot of ground and did a commendable job of educating our students on going beyond simply singing well. She stressed the need for singers to be performers so that they enhance their stage presence. Right from different ways of holding the mike to interacting with the technicians on stage, Auxilia did a fantastic job, especially considering that it was the first time she was delivering a lecture of this kind.
While the Association proved extremely active this year, we hope to have an more action-packed year in 2009-10!
Prof. Susan Lobo
Prof-in-charge
A.W.M.T.C.
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The annual western music talent contest or A.W.M.T.C. as it is popularly known is our in-house western Music Talent contest. It is keenly contested both in Junior and Degree College in instrumental and vocal categories ranging from classical to non-classical, jazz, and pop music in individual, duo and group categories.
IN - TUNE
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In tune, the inter-college music competition hosted by St. Andrew’s college was held on December 11 in St. Andrew’s Auditorium. The Western Music trophy was closely contested by St. Andrew’s and St. Xavier’s, though several other colleges also participated. The Western Solo Singing competition saw a record 30 entries and was eventually won by Dean Sequeira. Vernon Noronha and Brynelle , while Vernon also bagged the Bollywood karaoke. The Band competition was bagged by Ruia College while the Western Ensemble was swept up by the ‘santas’ of St. Xavier’s College.
With Nikhil, our Rudolph as the compere, and some fantastic gifts (Mahindra Club Holiday vouchers) for the audience, it was a wonderful morning of music and masti. The In tune '08 team consisting of Ullorica, Chrisanne, Shefali, Linford, Rebecca, Daniella, Colin, Ian, Blaise, Beverly, Melanie, Michael, Brennen and Mrs. Coelho wish to thank our participants, judges, sponsors and the management and staff of the college and the management of St. Andrew's Auditorium. See you at In Tune ‘09!
Prof. Janine Coelho
Prof-in-charge