How the Madras Musical Association Choir is going in for unique international collaborations

Western classical music has always occupied an unusual space in Chennai. In a city, where the December Season dominates headlines and Carnatic music shapes its identity, the strains of Bach, Bernstein or Whitacre have often been heard only in small circles — school choirs, church halls or the occasional orchestra appearances. Yet over the past decade, there has been a quiet but discernible growth of Western choral and orchestral culture in the city. More youngsters are being trained, many schools are investing in choirs and international ensembles are now making Chennai a stop on their tours.

Members of the Poland’s Concerto Glacensis Choir performing recently at the Museum Theatre in Chennai.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

What stood out at a recent concert was not only the scale — over 120 voices filling the arches of the Museum Theatre — but also the ease with which the audience embraced it. Sacred music from Europe, Tamil folk melodies, Polish village songs and Broadway classics followed one after the other without any sense of rupture. For listeners, who may have first encountered Western classical music through a school hymn or a film soundtrack, here was a chance to experience it in full-bodied choral form.

The programme itself moved between a solemn prayer and playful rhythms, between the quiet lyricism of European hymns and the theatrical sweep of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Amigos para siempre’. But what mattered more than individual ‘Przesliczna panno’ was sung, and delighted recognition when the Tamil ‘Punnai marathu’ entered the air. Applause broke out during the Broadway medley, reminding one that Western music is no longer an imported curiosity but something Chennai audiences feel comfortable claiming as part of their listening.

The MMA Choir offered an aural treat for music-loving audiences, both young and alike, at its recent performance along with Poland’s Concerto Glacensis Choir at the Museum Theatre, in Chennai.
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

As Augustine Paul, music director and conductor of MMA, remarked, “This was a treat for our music-loving audience, young and old alike.” His words capture the widening demographic of listeners. Once confined to a small Anglo-Indian and Christian community, Western choral music now draws a more diverse public.

For the Polish visitors, the experience was equally transformative. “The MMA Choir is friends first, and collaborators second,” said conductor Katarzyna Mąka, who has worked closely with MMA. She spoke of the emotional weight certain songs carried for her singers, and of how the Chennai audience’s response reaffirmed the idea that music transcends borders. “Even if the words are not understood, the message is felt with the heart,” she reflected.

Her words pointed to another dimension of such concerts: their ability to create a space of empathy. In an age where cultural diplomacy often takes the form of summits and trade deals, here was a demonstration that harmony can be literal as well as symbolic. Katarzyna Mąka went further, suggesting that collaborations such as these can open doors for broader exchanges in education and social life, not just in music.

For the MMA Choir, the concert was another chapter in its century-long history of holding up Western choral traditions. For Concerto Glacensis, it was the fulfilment of a dream.