Singing human unity

When Antoine put together a group of female singers in Auroville and began rehearsing two years ago, his initial goal was to “share beauty and emotion” through music. But over time, a parallel goal evolved. “I realised that amongst 12 women, there were 10 different nationalities. The music I was discovering came from many different countries, so it became obvious that we had to celebrate human unity through the diversity of polyphony.” From Eastern European folk songs to African rhythmic chants, from Irish ditties and swing tunes to a Jamaican-style folk song, from Japan to Brazil, the choir’s repertoire spans at least 15 different countries. For Antoine, the first criterion for choosing a song is the music’s emotional content. “If I’m touched by the music, I will choose it. It’s instinct. Of course, I have to check whether we can sing the song, that it’s not too complex. But the main question is, ‘How do I feel when I listen to it?’ For me, singing is sharing emotion.”

Growing up in a musical family in France, Antoine learned piano and sang in different kinds of choirs from a young age. “I was lazy with the piano, so I prepared only 15 minutes before going to the piano class. For the choir, I never work at home, I learn very quickly. I should not say that because, like all conductors, I request the choristers to work at home!” Antoine could have been a professional musician, but his father steered him towards engineering, which meant that singing became a spare time passion. Over the decades, Antoine sang with church choirs, oratorio choirs accompanied by large orchestras, small vocal ensembles and men’s choirs.

Antoine started conducting a small choir in France about twelve years ago, inspired by his own experiences as a chorister. “I had the chance to sing with some very sensitive conductors, but I was often disappointed by the conductors of the choirs I joined.” He was particularly inspired by one talented conductor, who established a “deep contact” with the choristers and brought the choir “to paradise”. “He made us think beyond the music, beyond the notes. Unfortunately, he died too young, and since then I never found a conductor who could bring such a quality of emotion. So, one way to have what I expect from a conductor is to be the conductor myself. I know what I want from a choir. As a conductor, I can try to draw out the emotion that I expect. Of course, at one point one needs someone who explains how it works, technique is necessary. So I attended several classes and met experienced conductors. Once you know how to do it, you don’t have to think, and you can focus on the most important aspects of music.”

When Antoine joined Auroville three years ago, he initially tried to set up a mixed choir but couldn’t find enough willing and skilled men. After four months, he transformed this nascent group into a women’s choir, choosing repertoire from the 20th and 21st centuries – a repertoire designed to stretch him out of his comfort zone of music of the baroque, classical and romantic periods. One of the new songs performed by the choir, Caramba, is a case in point. “Caramba has a lot of dissonance, and it’s very challenging for the choir and for me. Sometimes, the notes are clashing. It’s a good training for everyone’s ear – to sing one’s own note, despite other singers’ clashing notes. I will go on choosing this kind of song, to make the choir improve.” When developing the songs with the choir, Antoine employs a fairly fluid approach. “I don’t do deep analysis of the music beforehand. When we start working on a song, I don’t know exactly how I want the choir to interpret it, but it comes naturally as we start to sing. I evolve the music in the process of rehearsal.”

The choir’s first performance in March 2018 in CRIPA prompted more than ten people amongst the audience to ask to join the choir, expanding the choir to 16 women. In 2019, the choir gave performances at CRIPA, Unity Pavilion and Sri Aurobindo Ashram, as well as some flash-mob events that surprised shoppers, workers and tourists at various Auroville venues.

After two years of hard work, Antoine feels that the choir is coming closer to his initial conception, and the performances have sometimes surprised him. “On the day of the performance in CRIPA, there was something that was beyond us. I was deeply touched and almost in tears. I felt transported, and the audience felt it too. That’s what I call the grace. Giving one’s best in Auroville is an offering, where one is not fixed on the result. If you focus on your offering and doing your best, you open yourself to a higher force.”

At every performance this year, the audience requested an encore of the Latin American song Abrete Corazon, a song which Antoine arranged. “It is a shamanic healing song that triggered something inside of me. But it’s not written for a choir. I recently started learning composition with Pushkar, and I decided to try harmonising the song for the choir. Shruti then joined the choir and she is a naturally-skilled singer with a beautiful voice, so she took the solo part. I also asked Lauren to play the flute, wanting to use the hidden talents in the choir. It’s been a great exercise to do this harmonisation for the first time.”

For Antoine, the greater challenges of the choir have not been musical, but have rather been related to the coordination and management of 16 women from very diverse backgrounds. “Despite some attendance difficulties, the fact that we performed well and had a beautiful result suggests that my attitude of trust is right.”

The choir continues to evolve and improve. “I say to the choir, ‘It was very good, but we can do better.’ I always ask them to give a little bit more, so they can improve. You can always go higher. We need to improve the quality of the voice. We can improve the emotion, work more deeply on every song, be more precise in the interpretation… But what is most important is spreading a beautiful energy. And this is seen in the smiling faces of the singers.”

Antoine’s long-term goal for the choir includes the development of his own skills. “The choir is a musical instrument, and the musician is the conductor, and I have to train myself to make my instrument more and more responsive. I can do nothing without the choir. We are together. The improvement is collective. I’m on a path with this group.”

For Antoine, the choir has been intrinsically wrapped up with his experience of joining Auroville. “When I joined Auroville three years ago, I knew I had to do something with the human voice here. When I conduct, I’m at my soul place. Even though he introduced me to choral singing my father steered me to be an engineer, but these days I do what I like and what I’m designed to do. Conducting now has more importance than singing for me. I follow my intuition with a lot of joy.”

As well as singing bass in the main Auroville choir, Antoine works with singers and actors to improve their voice, and he collaborates with the Unicorn Collective theatre company.

He also offers weekly spontaneous singing classes, in which people come together to sing without any goal. “It’s very important, because I can see many people who were told by parents to stop singing, stop making noise. In this way, adults become blocked in their self-expression. Singing is a natural thing that is really specific to humankind. When people can enjoy singing together, creating their own music on the spot without any rules or guidelines, simply being themselves, it’s wonderful. People are most of the time deeply touched when they discover what they can do. For many of them, it is a deep surprise.”