BENGALURU: The Bangalore Men, an all-male choir is one of the most sort after groups in the city when it comes to tribute and montage performances.
Jonas Olsson tells City Express about the choir’s inception and their performances this year. The choir team was founded in January 2015 with nine members, informs Jonas. “It was a union of people who were friends or friends of friends of different members in the team. We are all like minded and competent individuals who share the same love for performing,” he adds.
They group has led many performances in different cities across India like Hyderabad, Pondicherry, Mysore and have been to a couple of festivals in Goa as well. Olsson recalls performing a tribute show to the great Austrian composer, Franz Schubert and observes it as an unforgettable experience.
The team will be taking part in the celebrations that marks 30 years of The Bangalore School of Music in February.
When asked about their favourite songs to perform, Olsson says any kind of music that is “challenging” would add to the list. The group is very fond of Western classical music, he say. “As part of the carols in the city programme last December, we had performed at different places for a wider group of people. The audience response to the choir performances have been very good,” says Jonas.
“We have made choir performances more interactive. We want the audience to participate in it,” he adds.
The choir encouraged members from the audience to sing along to their favourite tunes and also added “unusual” music elements from Swedish and European traditional carol songs to their list last Christmas. “This spiced up the whole evening and a lot of people were delighted by the unexpected move of the team,” he says.
The choir believes in having a traditional approach to the Christmas concept. There is no instrumentation of any kind except for the piano. The other melodies are performed as an acapella. The song numbers involving a piano are - ‘Oh, Holy Night’, ‘Joy to the world’ and ‘Deck the halls’, which were performed during Christmas.
They are planning to hold a full-fledged concert on February 11 titled Simply Schubert together with Natallia Kapylova on the piano and with soloist Maria Forsström from Sweden at St Mark’s Cathedral at 7pm.
They are also participating in a performance of Vivaldia’s Gloria together with the Cecilian Choir, which will include various soloists and an orchestra from Sweden on February 19 at Gurunanak Bhavan Auditorium, at 7pm.