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NCOJ showcases ‘Classics for the Youth’

Published:Wednesday | November 16, 2022 | 12:06 AM
Musical director Winston Ewart at the National Chorale of Jamaica’s church service and candle lighting ceremony to honour the lives lost during the COVID-19 pandemic at St Theresa Roman Catholic Church in Vineyard Town on Wednesday, August 4, 2021.
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Musical director Winston Ewart at the National Chorale of Jamaica’s church service and candle lighting ceremony to honour the lives lost during the COVID-19 pandemic at St Theresa Roman Catholic Church in Vineyard Town on Wednesday, August 4, 2021.

In an innovative move, the National Chorale of Jamaica (NCOJ) will place the youth at centre stage at the opening of its gala season on Wednesday, November 16, at 7 p.m. at the Holy Cross Catholic Church in Half-Way Tree with Classics for the Youth, in recognition of the reservoir of young, home-grown talent in the classical genre of music.

Under the theme ‘Music of Adoration, Praise and Thanksgiving’, and the expert baton of musical director Winston Ewart, students from several high schools will savour choral voices delivering classical pieces composed by greats such as Franz Schubert and Ralph Vaughan Williams. The performance will also feature students from Central Branch All-Age joining voices with those of the chorale in A Song of Thanksgiving, the brainchild of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

NCOJ Marketing Director Maxine Brown said, “The chorale understands music to be generational, and therefore our youth must have a menu of options in expressing their taste in music and creating their own legacies for the benefit of others.”

After a successful partnership with world-renowned Jamaican operatic bass-baritone Sir Willard White and mezzo-soprano Lady Sylvia White, in a command performance in August at the University Chapel, which earned a standing ovation, the chorale, in celebrating its 50th anniversary, will gift Jamaica’s youth with classical music that will no doubt inspire them.

NCOJ Chairman Christopher Samuda interprets the classics as “appealing to the very soul of humanity as the lyrics and themes of [many religions], and provide for the maturing and matured spiritual context for living life meaningfully and well”.

Director Brown also highlighted NCOJ’s anniversary celebrations, which started with a thanksgiving service at the landmark St Andrew Parish Church. This gala season, which spotlights the youth, continues with a second rendition at Mona Church of Ascension on Saturday, November 19, and concludes with the Diamond Chorale Performance on Sunday, November 20, at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Half-Way Tree.

“Classics for the Youths will be more than an event in classical music; it will be an invigorating journey, not only for a time, but significantly, it will be a timeless and memorable experience for our youth,” Samuda said.