Samuel Prabhakar, current secretary of the 124-year-old Madras Musical Association, has fond memories of the association’s much-awaited, annual Christmas concert, Carols by Candlelight. “My father used to sing in the MMA choir so I attended the concert all through my childhood,” he says. He recalls the ghosts of carols past that once filled the air as warm wax dripped off candles and music sheets rustled in the wind and adds, with a smile, “The entire community came together and there was no Christmas without it.”
The Yuletide season seems to have already segued into the fabric of the city: trees, stars, tinsel and lights are being taken out of storage; cakes bursting with fruit and alcohol are being mixed and baked; gifts are being bought, wrapped and squirrelled away; Santas of all shapes and sizes are beginning to don their scraggy white beards, cotton-trimmed red robes and genial expressions, all set to ho-ho all night. And when, “in the air there’s a feeling of Christmas,” the carols must follow.
“This year is very special because for the first time ever we will have our own symphony orchestra playing,” says Prabhakar. They have never had a full fledged orchestra of their own presenting before, points out president Mary Rodrigues. “Our orchestra is brand new, many are young students,” she says, adding that it will be conducted by MMA’s music director, Augustine Paul.
MMA’s history
The Madras Musical Association was founded in 1893 at St Andrews, the Kirk, by a group of Europeans who simply wanted to sing together.
“The first president was the then Governor of Madras and a Signor Aloysio, an Italian, was its first conductor,” says former president and patron, Dr Ravi T Santosham, who has been involved with the choir since 1966 and became its president in 1990.
Post-Independence, however, the MMA transitioned from being a mostly European organisation to an Indian one, as many foreigners left the country or retired to the hills around then. “Handel Manuel, who took over in the Fifties, was our first Indian director,” he says.
It must have been the golden age of the MMA and it grew from strength to strength, garnering more members, getting more organised, performing various genres of music consistently. The various consulates of the city got involved with it.
“The Golden Gate Quartet, Mahalia Jackson...they came to Chennai in the early 50s and 60s,” says Santosham.
The MMA was delivered a crippling blow in 1982 when Handel Manuel stepped down and they had to move out of the Kirk, which had fostered their music for nearly a century.
But they soon found a new home in the Hindustan Bible Society and College, Kilpauk.
“We have been here for decades now,” says Prabhakar.
A start to Christmas
This year, 12 city-based ensembles and choirs, including MMA’s own, will take to stage, ushering in Christmas as they, “sing we joyous, all together”. The groups, an eclectic mix that have been handpicked by the MMA, are allowed to perform two songs each. “We have a choir of schoolchildren, college choirs, church choirs, an all-male choir, two Malayalam choirs, a female voice choir…,” says Prabhakar.
The free show, “the expenses are borne by the association,” says Rodrigues, draws people from all over the city and beyond to it. “People coming in from abroad plan their travel accordingly,” she smiles. “ I have seen entire families across generations coming for this show.”
And as always, the concert ends with all the 500-600 odd people gathered here becoming one humongous choir. Illuminated by candles held by every participant, this act of community singing is something the city looks forward to every year. MMA’s Augustine Paul admits as much. “People wait to sing the carols with us. As a performer, I have a strong belief that if you include your audience in one song, it really stays in people’s hearts and minds.”
(The 60th edition of MMA’s Carols by Candlelight will be held on December 16 at St Christopher’s College of Education, Vepery, at 6.30 pm.)
