Good music...

Last weekend I watched this really spectacular group called the Octet Cantabile. They are apparently the only singing group in India whose members graduated with distinction in ensemble singing from London’s Trinity College of Music.

Its members are sopranos Nina Menezes (a petite girl with a big voice. Her Ave Maria was moving and gave me goosebumps. Oh and she's doing a PhD in music) and Maxyn Kingston (she has a real edgy rocker-chick voice who's also a mother of 2), alto singers Pearline Roopkumar and Jayanthi Kamalaratnam Prabhakar (she basically intro'd the songs and was really articulate and humorous) , tenors Augustine Paul and Samcy Philip (another Christian rock singer) and bass singers Kingslin Pon Bhabha (he was the shy one) and Billy John (this guy has a voice of an African American, the deep boom-boom kind). Bet you can't say all their names in one breath!

The pastor of my dad's church was on holiday in India when he saw them. He quickly brought them up to KL last year for a concert which my parents attended. They raved so much I had to go this time, to see what the fuss was about myself, and did I mention that they were unbelievable! :-) Actually I had woken up early that Sunday and had driven around quite a bit so I wasn't terribly enthusiastic about going. My parents had attended the concert on Saturday but wanted to go again and I being the dutiful daughter volunteered to drive again! But it was well worth it.

Individually they have performed in Ireland and China but as a group Malaysia is the first country outside of India that they've performed in. Their repertoire runs from classics and negro spirituals to gospel numbers in English, Tamil and Malayalam. I don't think the recordings do any real justice to them, you just have to catch them live.

10 points for the blogger who guesses who sings the Malayalee songs...