‘Come Home Christmas’ a festive album by Shillong Chamber Choir releases on 18th December 2020
With their trademark of spreading infectious musical notes, the Shillong Chamber Choir gears up for the launch of their elegant Christmas festive album ‘Come Home Christmas’. Conceptualized by the man himself Neil Nongkynrih, who has been inspired by prayer, the 8 masterpieces are a blend of cultures, languages and will help listeners relook at the traditional meaning of Christmas.
Aiming to enthrall the audience with their music, most songs are sung in English but have stanzas vocalized in ancient Aramaic which was spoken by Jesus Christ in addition to Hebrew, Farsi, and Urdu. Adding on to the aesthetics of the album, the music is a fusion of pop culture and classical Christmas songs and intends on appealing to people of all ages. Setting it apart from the other existing albums, ‘Come Home Christmas’ includes a variety of instruments and languages. From the Middle Eastern percussion instrument Darbuka to the melodic instruments like Ney, Oud, Duduk, Saz; to Western percussion/instruments and the signature touch of the piano to name a few, each instrument has made its own contribution.
Treading melodiously and conducting the choir soulfully, director Neil Nongkynrih shares, “Come Home Christmas has been composed and curated to help spread the Christmas cheer. The Christmas story has been of late so westernized that we have overtime taken a detour from the real event. This album is to bring back that traditional story of Christ being born in the Middle East. Hence, we as a band, have tried to bring back or reintroduce the Middle Eastern flavor, in terms of both the instruments and languages.”
Lead singer William Richmond adds, “With Come Home Christmas, we have tried to live up to our tradition of singing in different dialects and pushed ourselves to step into a new space by singing middle eastern languages. The uniqueness of the album lies in all these aspects of vocalizing and harmonizing the songs thus making it an interesting listen and at the same time fusing in a contemporary sound to the whole thing. With the efforts of all members gone into making ‘Come Home Christmas’ a musical burst of east meets west, we hope you enjoy our Christmas album.”
The 40-minute ‘Come Home Christmas’ album goes live on Shillong Chamber Choir’s Youtube channel and will be available on multiple music streaming platforms like Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Jio Saavn, Google Music, Gaana, Wynk etc. from 18th December 2020. The choir will also perform live on 22nd December on feelitlive.co.in. Furthermore, a special Christmas concert is in the making for the upcoming Qmin Holiday Soiree from 23rd December to 3rd January and shall be available to The Taj members along with their order.
