Hardly a silent night

In the two years since it was formed over a casual Christmas lunch, the Delhi Divas that boasts 23 women from 12 countries has brought Yuletide nostalgia to the British High Commissioner’s residence, the Indonesian embassy and the German Christmas fair. It began when Indonesian Meilly Waghorn, the then president of the Delhi Network, an organisation that helps expatriates to relocate, asked Hedger-Gourlay, a Brit, to get a group to sing carols for Christmas. “She had heard me sing with various Delhi choirs but I guess we quite surprised her with our performance,” says Hedger-Gourlay’s, a former West End artist, who marshalled a group of amateurs to crank out a lively performance.

Surely, there are the usual refrains like It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but the tempo is kept high with occasional riffs. “There are many choirs in Delhi, but I think we stand out since we don’t just sing but also perform our songs and have great fun doing it. A lot of choirs can be boring when they are just standing and singing,” says Hedger-Gourlay. The group went around as Delhi Network Christmas Carollers until they decided on the name Delhi Divas. “The women are all great characters and very sassy, I believe the name suits,” smiles Hedger-Gourlay, dressed in a black kurta. The Indonesian Evy Kappes, looking svelte in a black dress and a chic red jacket and nothing like the mother of two that she is, says it’s great to be singing again, “I have sung in church earlier but the songs were put on hold until 2006,” says Kappes, who has been with the Delhi Divas since its inception.

If what you fancy are French baroque songs, old choir compositions like Quam pulchra es of the French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier, sprightly German carols like Mary had a baby or even a Marathi version that goes Namo namo Maria, then head for Alliance Francaise Golden Jubilee Choir, Austrian Cultural Forum’s Mozart’s Children’s Choir, Delhi Chamber Choir or Capital City Minstrels — all a mix of expats and locals and conducted by the feisty Hungarian Gabriella Boda-Rechner.

While Alliance Francaise has a choir of 30 teens to ease the expatriates’ nostalgia with French compositions, Mozart’s Children’s Choir has 80 members. “The magic of singing in a choir is that you are not alone and the voice finds a way,” says Boda-Rechner.

The other day, at the Bahai auditorium, Golden Jubilee Choir, Mozart’s Children’s Choir and the Delhi Chamber Choir brought in a wonderful performance with nouvelle French style Man is the new bomb and a jazzy Noel with a drummer. The performance ended with Dona nobis pacem (Give us Peace) in memory of the Mumbai terror victims. If you want to catch the Capital City Minstrels in action, head for the Sacred Heart Cathedral at 7 pm today.