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A MUSICAL medic is in Rome this week where he and his group are singing for the Pope.
To his patients Dr Kalyan Subrahmanyam, of the American Mission Hospital, is the kindly specialist in pain management who helps relieve their suffering from chronic long-term conditions.
But outside the hospital Dr Kalyan is one fifth of Gatt, a choral quintet whose members have been performing together for more than 40 years singing the southern spirituals which originated with America's long-ago slave community.
Now the quintet has been invited to the Eternal City to take part in the International Festival of Church Music which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
Dr Kalyan, 59, got together with original members Tony Davids, Allan Sathyadev and Dr Samuel Grubb when the four met at the Emanuel Methodist Church in Madras (Chennai), southern India, 42 years ago.
With Dr Kalyan taking care of arrangements, they began singing together and came up with the name Gatt from their initials, Grubb, Allan, Tony and Theopholus (Dr Kalyan's unused first name) and, taking their inspiration from America's Golden Gate Quartet, they began performing at first around their hometown and later across India.
When Allan went off to study in England, Ravi Santosham joined the group turning them into a quintet with Allan's return some years later.
In 1998, Gatt had their first overseas performance at the International Festival of Church Music (IFCM) at Coventry Cathedral in England with Dr Kalyan saying: "They took a huge gamble on us, we were known in India but they gave us the chance to perform on the international stage and in a formal setting for the first time. To actually be invited to take part in something like this was very special."
Since then the singers, who are now scattered across the globe from India to San Diego, USA, and, of course, Bahrain, which has been home to Dr Kalyan since 1992, have travelled to festivals all around the world and have returned to the IFCM on three occasions.
They sang at the Torch Bearing Ceremony at the Sydney Olympic Games and also at the Opera House in Sydney and over the years have performed at the Chicago Gospel Festival and as part of a Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in Philadelphia.
And this week they are in Rome among 1,000 singers raising their voices in St Peter's Square where they will be seen by the Pontiff Pope Benedict XVI.
Dr Kalyan will be among a group of several Indian singers taking part in the main concert but as Gatt they are also performing at several other venues including as the only group to take the stage for the first night of the festival at the Sheraton Hotel.
Dr Kalyan said: "This is something really quite special, we will be performing in St Peter's Square and also, I believe, at the Pantheon (the magnificent ancient dome now used as a Catholic church).
"Coming from all over the world, we'll have a couple of days when we get there to practise and it's not just about singing together it's about the mental aspect of performing together as well.
"We're all very excited about it, particularly as it is the 25th anniversary of the festival and we will be performing with some world class musicians."
