At the newly renovated Victoria Public Hall, sound doesn’t just travel and disappear, it lingers. It curls around arches, settles into the brick, and ages finely with the building. On March 28, these historic walls will make space to hold something refreshing, a one-of-a-kind performance at this venue with a chorus of 40 voices, unraveling stories that are at once intimate and expansive.
For the Indian Choral Ensemble, the venue enhances the experience created by the show. Co-founder and choir director Kalyani Nair shares, “Performing at new spaces, interesting spaces, as a sort of choir, it’s not just the music, it is also about the hall, that makes the experience complete.”
Adding to the conversation, Karthik Manickavasakam, co-founder of the band, notes, “This historic venue enhances our performance because the kind of music we write, it’s not the usual commercial, popular chain of sound. It’s very dynamic. And the hall is a renovated place. The vibe of the hall kind of adds to the musical sensibility that we have.”
Before the performance, the team as part of their recce, spread across the hall, played music from different corners, and listened to how the hall responded. “The experience is as much about the space as it is about the music,” she notes, adding that with the natural acoustics of the hall, the choir just sounds beautiful here.
In India, choral music — a genre specialised by the band — often arrives with preconceptions that it is a genre of music performed at the church, or by a Western classical band. The ensemble is actively pushing against that. Kalyani says, “We’re blending Indian sensibilities with contemporary Western choral styles. It’s almost like we’re exploring a new genre.” Their songs are not grand abstractions. They are simple, relatable, and accessible. “Choral music can tell any story just like pop or jazz. We’re using it as an independent storyteller’s voice,” points out Kalyani.
That cocncept comes through in the concert’s central idea, Stories sung for every heart. “Any kind of story, anything that you want to communicate with people, choral music can offer,” she shares.
This weekend’s concert also marks the choir’s first time collaboration with the Sunshine String Quartet. “We’ve mostly performed with a band. This is the first time Chennai audiences will hear us with strings.”
Importantly, Kalyani says, “Voices are the forefront. Everything else supports that.”
The setlist contains 14 original songs, with a show run time of over 80-90 minutes, moving across languages including English, Hindi, Malayalam, and gibberish. “For a choir, sometimes there is no language,” Kalyani explains. There is no rigid narrative arc, but each piece carries its own story. Between songs, the ensemble plans to speak, introduce, and occasionally break down the music. “It’s like a personal story from 40 of us to the audience,” Karthik says.
With this performance, the band also marks its return to performing in the city after one and a half years. Their last Chennai performance, at the Museum Theatre in August 2024, marked a turning point.
Having taken their music to other states and rewriting their originals in different languages, Karthik says “It’s always emotional to come back.”
From a 12 member group band to a 35-40 member ensemble in under two years, the expansion was organic, driven by people who simply wanted to be part of a sound that didn’t quite exist elsewhere.
For all its growth, the ensemble still grapples with access, a fundamental challenge “There’s a lot of ignorance about choral music,” Kalyani admits. “But once people attend, they want to come back. The Indian Choral Ensemble is the theme because by now we have established our sound. People know what to expect. For people who don’t know, this has been an amalgamation of Indian melodies along with Western jazz,” adds Karthik
Each of the band’s pieces stands on its own, leaving a mark on audiences playlists this weekend.
The Indian Choral Ensemble live ft. The Sunshine String Quartet will be performing on March 28, at 6.30 pm at The Victoria Public Hall.
Tickets are available on ticket9