Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The Manama Singers concert at the Golden Tulip Hotel Ballroom was pure joy.
Billed as’ Happy Together’ it was the perfect antidote to all the doom and gloom surrounding us every time we turn on the TV news.
A blend of 14 songs spanned the generation gap and had the audience clapping and singing along.
Indeed the Manama Singers seemed to have brought their own support groups with them judging by the whoops and hollers when the curtains opened. They shouldn’t have worried … they didn’t need them!
Starting out with a delicious Jasperse arrangement of ‘Happy Together’ they brought us all under their spell.
I cannot praise musical director Michael Natzke enough. In just one short year he has given the Manama Singers their confidence back, as witnessed in March’s totally professional and amazingly-moving performance of Haydn’s Creation and again on Friday night.
The inclusion of the song Lean on Me by Bill Withers as the closer for the first half of the programme could not have been more appropriate, because under Mr Natzke’s tuition that is exactly what they have learned to do. They complement each other with verve, enthusiasm and great joy.
It would be impossible to state which tune I enjoyed the most as each one seemed to have been dipped like a strawberry into melted chocolate and sung with love.
It also seems too unfair to mention the soloists by name and not include those of the main choir whose role of ‘backing singers’ doesn’t begin to explain how much they gave to the audience.
Yet I have to say that Katrina Ladswig’s lusty rendition of Billy Joel’s Piano Man was magical and deserving of a standing ovation. As I write, a grin is spreading across my face at the memory of audience and performers melded together in song.
Then what can I say about Anna Thompson-Hall’s rendition, effortlessly invoking 30s jazz clubs, of Embraceable You by George and Ira Gershwin.
As the closing notes drifted off over Manama there was a moment of understanding that we had just listened to something truly beautiful.
George Lindsay proved that his comedic talents are in their prime with his very un-Van Morrison like version, complete with American accent no less, of Brown-Eyed Girl.
The haunting Gabriel’s oboe by Ennio Morricone with Lis Holman on cello and her husband Andy Holman on the trumpet tugged at every heart string possible.
And, Erika Nottingham-Rawles’ rendition of The Water is Wide whilst completely out of character to the other more well-known songs, brought with it a tremendous sense of inner peace.
It was Keith Scott’s take on Paul Simon’s iconic Bridge Over Troubled Water that clinched the entire evening for me. I sat with bated breath wondering if he was going to reach the high notes. Should I have worried? Not for one second – Keith, the choir, Katrina on piano – all perfect.
The evening closed with Michael Jackson’s Heal the World, which as always brought tears to my eyes and was a fitting end to a wonderful evening.
As Burt Bacharach and the Manama Singers told us so eloquently: What the World Needs Now Is Love, Sweet Love and the Manama Singers showed us plenty of that.
– Christine Hasan
