TWO’S A (SOUND) COMPANY: Doha Youth Choir and Hamburg Girls Choir.     Photo by Ajay Aloni


By Abigail Mathias

If you thought that rock music could not be interpreted by a choir, think again. A group of 49 girls from Germany called the Hamburg Girls Choir sang Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters in perfect harmony and truly brought the lyrics to life.
The award winning choir recently performed at the German International School in Doha on a cool Friday evening. The girls began each song with a short introduction bringing Germany to Doha’s doorstep, with each rendition. The group was singing along with the Doha Youth Choir, a budding local choir here in the city.
The Hamburg Girls’ Choir is a choral school for girls, grounded at the Hamburg State Music School by Gesa Werhahn and Christoph Pillat. Singing since 2003, their diverse repertoire contains German as well as international choir music. The chorus consists of approximately 200 singing girls starting at age four. A main emphasis of the group’s work is to cultivate the singing of a-cappella music. The choir was a finalist and winner at the renowned German Choir Competition in 2010 and 2014 and is considered one of the leading girls’ choirs of Germany.
They sing a piece by Franz Schubert from the late 17th century and are equally at ease rendering a song from the modern music group, Coldplay. They also delight the audience by singing like birds from the forest where the music seemed to move from one part of the hall to the other in a stereophonic fashion. They did so without microphones and moved within the audience, in an unusual and intimate way.
Yearly international cultural exchanges are central to this group’s work. They put up regular concerts in Hamburg and neighbouring regions and even places like Bulgaria, Sweden, England and South Africa to name a few. On this tour they travel to Doha and later to the UAE.
The group’s young conductor Gesa stuns you with her passion. She is travelling around the world with her choir and a baby that is barely a few weeks old. Besides being a dedicated and professional conductor, she is also a mentor and friend to the girls.  

Melodies from around the world
The Doha Youth Choir began the evening’s performance with Ah ya Zein, a traditional Arabian arrangement by Willisegger Hansruedi. For the Doha Youth Choir, this has been a great experience, says conductor Alena Pyne. “There is nothing as good for our development as standing in front of a visiting conductor of note, watching Gesa’s gestures, drawing us out of ourselves, shaping our sound, our tuning and willing us to give of our very best in response,” says Alena.
She adds, “A workshop with Gesa’s own renowned choir earlier in the day, undoubtedly taught our young singers so very much more about sound production and ensemble singing and we will take our collective experience forward to our next rehearsals invigorated by all we have learned. This is our aim, to train our young choir to be a great choir.” The Hamburg Girls Choir has invited the Doha Youth Choir who hope to travel to Hamburg in 2016.
The event in Doha was attended by a number of leading figures, including German Ambassador Angelika Renate Storz-Chakarji, who spoke of how music can indeed bring the world closer together. She was visibly moved by the performance and said she looked forward to interacting with the choir members shortly thereafter.
Music education, she noted, is given much importance in Germany and it is hoped that the idea resonates worldwide. The event was a fund-raiser for the German International School in Doha, for much needed instruments for their music department.
When asked about the general theme of the evening’s event, Gesa says, “I wanted to show the diversity in our music and our wide repertoire. To showcase some classical pieces in German, juxtaposed with some modern pieces and some popular music at the end.” Gesa is an accomplished musician and has a university degree of teaching and diploma of performing in piano. She is a master of choir conducting at the college of music in Lubeck and Hamburg and the University of Hamburg. She is also a high school teacher for music and history at the Albert-Schweltzer-Gymnasium Hamburg.
She shares her joy at the end of her choir’s first performance in Doha.
“I do believe that today’s audience appreciated the music as we tried to include them in every part of the performance by taking the girls around them and singing in a circle,” she says. Her husband Christoph Pillat is the choir manager, who also has a university degree of teaching at the college of music in Lubeck and the University of Hamburg. He is a master of cultural management at the Liberal University of Berlin and is also a high school teacher for Drama, German and Music in Hamburg.
The girls in their red blazers sang with effortless ease. Their co-singers, the Doha Youth Choir, were equally impressive singing in German, Arabic and English. Accomplished pianist Jakob Deimi played an improvised piece to a stunned audience. He also accompanied both choirs on many of the songs.
Getting the families of so many young girls to agree to send them half way across the world is not as difficult as one would expect as the choir is serious about what they do.
Gesa explains, “We know these girls very well as they’ve practically grown up with us all these years. We also know we can absolutely trust them. What’s more, these girls look out for each other the older ones take care of the younger ones.” The group is split into ensembles according to age and ability. This particular concert choir includes girls between the ages of 14 and 22 years who rehearse twice a week.
Speaking to some of the girls shortly after their performance makes it obvious that these are not just ordinary teenagers. Somewhat shy, but extremely friendly is Helena. She had just sung a solo that night. When asked about her future plans, she says she’d love to persue music.
Amelie Rauscher has been with the choir for six years and says that she is only missing two days of school and her parents know how passionate she is about music. Another girl said she is equally interested in taking up violin playing professionally and has already come close to mastering the instrument. It’s easy to forget that most of these girls are not even close to 18 as yet. While on their first visit to Doha, the Doha Youth choir and their families took the girls from Germany on a traditional Qatari dhow on Doha’s coastline. They hope to learn much more about the country on the following day.   
The show comes to a close with Guten Abend, gute Nacht, a German lullaby sung by both choirs. They also perform an upbeat chest thumping, traditional American arrangement, Bring me little water Silvy. When the crowd begged for more, they were greeted with the popular Arabic song Habibi Ya Nour El Ayn.
It is evident music knows no language barriers and continues to bring people together.


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