We are delighted to announce that Somerville College Choir’s latest album, Divine Light, is released today.
Divine Light sees Somerville College Choir seeking to learn from and pay tribute to the monumental tapestry of music from the Indian subcontinent. Luminous and joyful, the soundscapes and sensibilities captured across the album’s 11 tracks offer a vibrant expression of what might be termed the living Indian Choral tradition.
As conductor and musicologist Dr Anita Datta notes in her accompanying essay, ‘The realisation that India has a long-established choral tradition, and one that has origins and outposts far beyond the convent school chapels, basilicas, and church cloisters, is sometimes a cause of surprise amongst Western choral enthusiasts.’ However, Dr Datta continues, ‘like much of India’s cultural heritage, India’s choral tradition is a syncretic palimpsest of many cultures, languages, and aesthetics.’
In this album, therefore, you will find yourself moving from the fluid harmonies of a Konkani wedding song to deep somatic meditations inspired by the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, from Hindi secular poetry associated with the changing seasons to a whole-choir explosion of joyful rhythmic syllables in Reena Esmail’s virtuosic raga exposition.
Inspired by the same radical openness that has characterised Somerville College Choir since its foundation, Divine Light represents the fullest expression yet of our Choir’s aspiration to learn, explore and make connections beyond the liturgical canon. By offering a humble, heartfelt tribute to Indian classical music, the album also acknowledges the long-standing friendship between Somerville College and scholars from India through the OICSD and notable Indian alumnae such as Cornelia Sorabji, India’s first female High Court advocate, and Indira Gandhi, India’s first and only female prime minister.
In a time of unprecedented cultural and political upheaval, Divine Light is a timely expression of the Indian ideal of unity in diversity, achieved with joy through intercultural exchange and creative collaboration.
Watch the video to ‘Faith is the bird’
Read Dr Anita Datta’s Essay Introducing Divine Light
Director of Chapel Music Will Dawes and Somerville College Choir wish to thank Virginia Ross (1966, International Studies) for enabling this project, and for her unwavering support of the Choir in recent years.
Friends and members of Somerville College Choir