At the Pastoral Orientation Centre in Kochi, a 40-member all-women choir sings ‘Give me the nay (flute) and sing’. This is an English translation of Lebanese song ‘Aatini al nay’, which had been sung by Fairuz, one of West Asia’s greatest singers. The audience laps it up. All the women on stage are dressed in black. In front of them are French musicians Camille Aubret, Martin Bauer, Jean-Luc Tamby, Stephane Tamby and Keyvan Chemirani, who are playing the baroque guitar, flute, bassoon, and percussion instruments. And standing on a stool and directing the choir is Pondicherry-born Frenchman Dr Selvam Thorez, director of the Alliance Française in Chittagong, Bangladesh.
The singers are from the Chittagong-based Asian University for Women (AUW). And they belong to four religions, Hindu Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist, and come from 14 countries: Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Syria, Indonesia, China, America, Vietnam, Pakistan and India.
India is represented by Mercy Kikon from Nagaland. “It is a privilege for me to sing on behalf of my country,” she says. Later, the choir sings a Naga song, ‘Zayele’ (Protect us). “It is a Gospel song,” says Mercy. Because of the Christmas season, most of the songs are spiritual ones. But it is a mix of Eastern as well as French baroque music from the 16th to 18th centuries. The Bangladeshi singers opt for a Rabindranath Tagore song, ‘Anondodhara’. There are songs from Syria and Cambodia, too.
The concert, ‘Earth to Heart’, with performances at Delhi, Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi (on December 19 last year) had been arranged by the Alliance Française de Trivandrum in association with Alliance Française de Chittagong and the Kochi-based Chavara Culture Centre, along with the French embassies in Delhi and Dhaka. The choir is now getting ready for a tour of Myanmar in February, this time with a repertoire of popular songs and baroque Italian music.
Conductor Selvam, who trains the choir three times a week, says that the girls were selected through a stringent test. Only 20 were chosen from 80 applicants. On his job, Selvam says, “A good conductor should be friendly, kind and as helpful as possible, to give the proper direction and provide meaning for the song. I try to give freedom to the singer to express herself so that they can get better.” All of them come from poor and lower middle-class families in small towns and cities across Asia. “They are all studying on scholarships provided by the AUW,” says Selvam. Says Cherie Blair, University Chancellor and former UK First Lady: “At a time when there is so much strife in the world based on our inherited identities, AUW shows that yet another world is possible where young women from different upbringings can come together...” The AUW is funded by entrepreneurs Jack and Beth Myer, the Ikea Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation apart from 45 other foundations and individuals.