The NDTC Singers perform Marjorie Whylie's arrangement of Bob Marley's 'One Love'. - CONTRIBUTEDTHE NATIONAL Dance Theatre Company (NDTC) Singers, who are an integral part of any NDTC presentations, serve up three suites of songs all arranged by Marjorie Whylie, the musical director of the NDTC, in the current season of dance at the Little Theatre.
The season, the NDTC's 43rd, ends today.
The first is a set of Money Songs with the male members of the ensemble 'sending up' their female counterparts for wanting money and little else every time they set eyes on them.
The set segues into the well-known Trinidadian traditional song Matilda, led by new recruit Heston Boothe, himself a versatile and talented musical all-rounder, narrating Matilda's taking his money and running off to Venezuela.
TRIBUTE TO MARLEY
The suite ends with Money Is a Funny Thing, with music and lyrics by the great folklorist Louise Bennett, which she created for the blockbuster LTM pantomime 'Queenie's Daughter' in the 1960s.
The second suite of songs is appropriately done in tribute to Bob Marley, whose 60th 'earthday' is being celebrated this year.
Ms. Whylie has selected from the Marley songbook Jammin, Waiting In Vain, Coming In From the Cold and the universally acclaimed One Love, which features the outstanding tenor Carl Bliss.
It is Mr. Bliss who is also prominently featured in the third suite of songs excerpted from the brilliant Ariel Raminez score for Misa Criolla, in which he leads the Gloria, the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei, joined by Heston Boothe and backed up by the rest of the ensemble.
This comprises the widely acclaimed Carole Reid, who shares the soprano line with veteran chorister Paula Asontuwa and Faith Livingston, a former lead singer with the University Singers.
Contraltos are Helen Christian, now in her sixth season with the NDTC, Dulcie Bogues, a long-time NDTC singer, and newcomer Jhiana Williams, who also now sings with the University Singers.
Howard Cooper, a veteran NDTC singer, shares the tenor line with Bliss and the versatile Ewan Simpson, while the charismatic Earle Brown leads the basses, made up of Boothe himself and new recruit Leighton Jones, who comes to the NDTC Singers with experience through the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.
Originally led by the late Joyce Lalor, an NDTC founding member, the NDTC Singers have appeared on some of the most prestigious concert stages in the world, including Carnegie Hall in New York, Tschaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Beethovenhalle in Bonn and the Sadlers Wells Theatre in London, to critical acclaim as well as to enthusiastic audience appeal.
Like their dancing counterparts in the NDTC, the Singers seem to be also in the renewal mode and have already been critically acknowledged since the season's opening.
SPECIAL RENDITION
They come alive in their special rendition of Kumina, serving as a choral orchestra as they also do for a number of such masterworks based on traditional lore and legend as Gerrehbenta, Pocomania, Blood Canticles and Misa Criolla.
In the current season, they are accompanied by the NDTC Orchestra, which comprises Kamau Khalfani and Minky Jefferson on flute, Wigmoor Francis on bass guitar, Tanagari Manning on guitar, and Henry Miller, Paul Green, Ewan Simpson and Jesse Golding on drums, all under the expert direction of Ms. Whylie, who directs from the keyboard.
