A choir made up almost entirely of ethnic Khasis has set to conquer the world
Nigel Britto
Magnificent Meghalaya lies beyond the hustle and bustle of modern India. The rolling hills of this remote, land-locked state are alive with the sound of music. In their verandahs, little boys sit with their guitars, strumming the chords of ‘Californication’ in the cool mountain air. In a remote village en route to Cherrapunji, which was until recently the wettest place on earth, an elderly lady in a chai (tea) stall taps her spoon to the beat of Bon Jovi’s ‘Always’. In a taxi down the street, the black t-shirt-clad driver chases the blues away with Iron Maiden’s ‘Fear of the Dark’. Wherever you go in this oft-forgotten part of India, Shillong, Meghalaya’s capital, is a town that eats, sleeps and breathes Western music, mainly due to heavy British influences and its dominant tribal Christian population. Bands like Scorpions and Petra have played here to thousands of screaming fans, and thus it is no surprise that the Shillong Chamber Choir, made up almost entirely of ethnic Khasis, has now set out to conquer the world.
Among the rickety-looking buildings is the Little Home School. It’s an honestly-named place — a school inside the home of Neil Nongkynrih, an accomplished, Guildhall-trained pianist who left fame and fortune in London to help his fellow Meghalayans out of the pit and into the limelight. Inside the cottage, students who are handpicked by Nongkynrih, most of them from lower middle-class families, pray, joke, study, create and perform the most inspiring choral music in the country.
The roots of the choir go back to 2001, when the unassuming Nongkynrih (who uses a pseudonym on the internet so as not to attract attention) left his promising concert career after 18 years. He didn’t find it satisfying. “It didn’t suit me, because I’m a people’s person,” he explains. On a visit to his hometown, “I realized how musical everybody was,” he says. He also noticed that nobody was tapping into the talent, and the tremendous potential remained just that: Potential. He also saw that disadvantaged teenagers on Shillong’s streets were emotionally disturbed and often strayed into drugs. In their helpless eyes, he found his new passion — polishing these rugged stones and turning them into priceless diamonds.
Initially, he faced a problem common to most Indian choirs — members weren’t focused and drifted in and out of the choir. So, in 2006, he started a unique concept called the Little Home School, which supplements academic learning with ‘life lessons’ and spirituality. The choir’s lead singer, soprano Ibarisha Lyngdoh, is a product of this school. She gave her first solo recital in Switzerland in 2006. At 17, she was part of the choir that won three Gold medals at the prestigious World Choir Games (known as the Choir Olympics) in Beijing in July 2010, the moment that established the Shillong Chamber Choir as one of the world’s finest. At the Olympics, this 17-member motley crew competed against large choirs of as many as 80 members each, and won. Lyngdoh can sing in her native Khasi, Assamese, Italian and Latin. Maverick cricket umpire Billy Bowden once famously asked her for an autograph after a concert in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Many other singers, however, have a not-so-glamorous past. “But everybody has a story,” says Nongkynrih. There are instances of alcohol and drug addicts who got another chance through Nongkynrih’s instruction. Another singer, Mika Phanbuh, triumphed over Down’s syndrome at the Home School, and she can now sing, read music, and even play the piano.
Nongkynrih comes from a political family — his father was a minister in the Meghalaya government, as was his great-aunt, one of the first women ministers in independent India. Yet, he had to battle several stereotypes to establish his choir. “Shillongites generally believed choral music was synonymous with Church and Opera with fat women singing in strange languages,” he says. His first real success was when his Khasi opera, Sohlyngngem — a green pigeon, whose cry is like that of a weeping woman — was performed in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2004. The reception was thunderous, and so was the audience reaction when it was performed again in New Delhi. He says he learned to defeat his apprehensions by diving into the deep end of the pool. And language was no barrier, either. “I believe it was the power of opera, the highest form of music,” he says.
The choir’s fans are as diverse as its repertoire. Nongkynrih, seen as the unofficial Khasi ‘ambassador’ to the outside world, has led his wards to London, Colombo, Poland, Italy and South Korea, besides many cities in India. The choir’s versatility, which is arguably its biggest strength, comes to the fore when asked to perform before different audiences. Nongkynrih is open to all kinds of music and his choir has the knack of merging Mozart, Bach, Abba, Queen, traditional Khasi music and even songs from the Hindi film industry into a delightful cocktail that makes for a delectable listening experience. Most of the singers know Hindi and English, but they also sing in Italian, German and Spanish. In order to master the difficult German inflection, the singers are trained by a teacher from Austria. Each singer is individually trained for his or her part, quite unlike the group training that most other Indian choirs provide.
Uncle Neil, as he is affectionately called, has made it his mission to promote Khasi culture and language, and that’s what prompted the choir to sing a Khasi song on India’s Got Talent, one of Asia’s biggest talent shows and part of the global Got Talent franchise. Many believe that the pathos that the voices in this choir possess is unique to the Khasis of Meghalaya, since most of the tribe’s folk music has a strain of sorrow running through it. Nongkynrih is disillusioned with India’s education system, which he says “doesn’t give children a chance to develop”. His Home School concentrates on holistic development, and from the moment a student enters, he or she is set on the path to that transformation.
Damon Lyndem and Donna Myrthong are two of the choir’s oldest members. Lyndem, who has studied piano under Nongkynrih since 2001, addresses his mentor as ‘Bah Neil’, a traditional salutation of respect. Currently working towards his Licentiate of Trinity College, London, he says the choir and the Home School are institutions where students benefit academically, musically and spiritually too. Myrthong agrees. “Uncle Neil taught us how to care about people other than ourselves,” she says. Nongkynrih, a Mother Teresa-esque father figure, guides his wards through life. They stay with him, pray together and eat whatever is available. Music creeps into their daily chores. His teachers, mostly members of the choir, are voluntary. How does he go about managing it? “Prayer,” he says simply — “the solution to everything.”
Among the rickety-looking buildings is the Little Home School. It’s an honestly-named place — a school inside the home of Neil Nongkynrih, an accomplished, Guildhall-trained pianist who left fame and fortune in London to help his fellow Meghalayans out of the pit and into the limelight. Inside the cottage, students who are handpicked by Nongkynrih, most of them from lower middle-class families, pray, joke, study, create and perform the most inspiring choral music in the country.
The roots of the choir go back to 2001, when the unassuming Nongkynrih (who uses a pseudonym on the internet so as not to attract attention) left his promising concert career after 18 years. He didn’t find it satisfying. “It didn’t suit me, because I’m a people’s person,” he explains. On a visit to his hometown, “I realized how musical everybody was,” he says. He also noticed that nobody was tapping into the talent, and the tremendous potential remained just that: Potential. He also saw that disadvantaged teenagers on Shillong’s streets were emotionally disturbed and often strayed into drugs. In their helpless eyes, he found his new passion — polishing these rugged stones and turning them into priceless diamonds.
Initially, he faced a problem common to most Indian choirs — members weren’t focused and drifted in and out of the choir. So, in 2006, he started a unique concept called the Little Home School, which supplements academic learning with ‘life lessons’ and spirituality. The choir’s lead singer, soprano Ibarisha Lyngdoh, is a product of this school. She gave her first solo recital in Switzerland in 2006. At 17, she was part of the choir that won three Gold medals at the prestigious World Choir Games (known as the Choir Olympics) in Beijing in July 2010, the moment that established the Shillong Chamber Choir as one of the world’s finest. At the Olympics, this 17-member motley crew competed against large choirs of as many as 80 members each, and won. Lyngdoh can sing in her native Khasi, Assamese, Italian and Latin. Maverick cricket umpire Billy Bowden once famously asked her for an autograph after a concert in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Many other singers, however, have a not-so-glamorous past. “But everybody has a story,” says Nongkynrih. There are instances of alcohol and drug addicts who got another chance through Nongkynrih’s instruction. Another singer, Mika Phanbuh, triumphed over Down’s syndrome at the Home School, and she can now sing, read music, and even play the piano.
Nongkynrih comes from a political family — his father was a minister in the Meghalaya government, as was his great-aunt, one of the first women ministers in independent India. Yet, he had to battle several stereotypes to establish his choir. “Shillongites generally believed choral music was synonymous with Church and Opera with fat women singing in strange languages,” he says. His first real success was when his Khasi opera, Sohlyngngem — a green pigeon, whose cry is like that of a weeping woman — was performed in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2004. The reception was thunderous, and so was the audience reaction when it was performed again in New Delhi. He says he learned to defeat his apprehensions by diving into the deep end of the pool. And language was no barrier, either. “I believe it was the power of opera, the highest form of music,” he says.
The choir’s fans are as diverse as its repertoire. Nongkynrih, seen as the unofficial Khasi ‘ambassador’ to the outside world, has led his wards to London, Colombo, Poland, Italy and South Korea, besides many cities in India. The choir’s versatility, which is arguably its biggest strength, comes to the fore when asked to perform before different audiences. Nongkynrih is open to all kinds of music and his choir has the knack of merging Mozart, Bach, Abba, Queen, traditional Khasi music and even songs from the Hindi film industry into a delightful cocktail that makes for a delectable listening experience. Most of the singers know Hindi and English, but they also sing in Italian, German and Spanish. In order to master the difficult German inflection, the singers are trained by a teacher from Austria. Each singer is individually trained for his or her part, quite unlike the group training that most other Indian choirs provide.
Uncle Neil, as he is affectionately called, has made it his mission to promote Khasi culture and language, and that’s what prompted the choir to sing a Khasi song on India’s Got Talent, one of Asia’s biggest talent shows and part of the global Got Talent franchise. Many believe that the pathos that the voices in this choir possess is unique to the Khasis of Meghalaya, since most of the tribe’s folk music has a strain of sorrow running through it. Nongkynrih is disillusioned with India’s education system, which he says “doesn’t give children a chance to develop”. His Home School concentrates on holistic development, and from the moment a student enters, he or she is set on the path to that transformation.
Damon Lyndem and Donna Myrthong are two of the choir’s oldest members. Lyndem, who has studied piano under Nongkynrih since 2001, addresses his mentor as ‘Bah Neil’, a traditional salutation of respect. Currently working towards his Licentiate of Trinity College, London, he says the choir and the Home School are institutions where students benefit academically, musically and spiritually too. Myrthong agrees. “Uncle Neil taught us how to care about people other than ourselves,” she says. Nongkynrih, a Mother Teresa-esque father figure, guides his wards through life. They stay with him, pray together and eat whatever is available. Music creeps into their daily chores. His teachers, mostly members of the choir, are voluntary. How does he go about managing it? “Prayer,” he says simply — “the solution to everything.”
This article was first published in The Times of India's Crest edition dated October 2, 2010.
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