Madras Youth Choir: On a song for 50 years now – Times of India

CHENNAI: For decades, their music has helped to spread the spirit of patriotism, national integration and secularism. But in their Golden Jubilee year, the Madras Youth Choir (MYC) has fallen silent due to the pandemic. Unable to conduct physical performances, the choir is striking the right note online through classes and performances.
“We usually perform at least 10 times a year but this year we have had no programmes. Our last event was in December 2019,” says D Ramachandran, artistic director of MYC, adding that they have always remained true to core principles of their founder, the late M B Srinivasan.
“As a student, MBS was involved in the freedom movement. He was highly patriotic and was also part of the Indian People’s Theatre Association during pre-Independence days, which aimed to promote patriotism and national integration through art forms such as music, especially that of the choral genre, and dance,” says Ramachandran, who has been with MYC since January 1971.
So, when MBS settled down in Madras, his desire was to create a choral group to spread the message of national integration, patriotism, unity, world peace, environmental issues, and also to promote folk songs.
“Vasanthi, who later became the vice chairperson of Manonmaniam University, and her husband K Subramanian were close family friends of MBS and they wanted a youth programme for AIR,” says Ramachandran. “So they chose about 20 boys and girls from schools and colleges, and MBS trained them. On August 19, 1970, they presented their first programme and that was the foundation for MYC.”
Since it received a rousing response, MBS decided to have it as a permanent choral group. Some of the more popular numbers rendered by the choir include ‘Parukulai nalla nadu’ by Subramaniya Bharathi, the Telugu song ‘Pillallara pappallara’ and the Kannada number ‘Ee mannu nammadu’.
“Today, MYC has 40 members of all age groups and our junior choir has about 20 people,” says Leela Natarajan, vice president, MYC, who has been associated with the choir for 11 years.
The choir is also recognised by the Sangeet Natak Akademi and perform on invitation at the cultural festivals and programmes of the Akademi. MYC had also travelled to the USA in July 2017 to participate in an international choir festival to mark the birth centenary of John F Kennedy.
With the pandemic on, the Golden Jubilee celebrations have been pushed to 2021. “But we train the junior choir on Saturdays and MYC practices every Sunday from 3pm to 6pm online,” says Natarajan, adding that none of them are professional singers but are there for the pleasure of singing together.
MYC has also been uploading its compositions on all its social media handles and website. “We post one or two songs every month. The junior choir also had a programme online – since they couldn’t sing as a group, we gave them individual pieces to sing — and we are coming up with another on September 19,” says Ramachandran.