Malaysian Choirs

Although there are no professional choirs in Malaysia, there are a handful of state-backed semi-professional choirs and many active amateur choral groups throughout the country. Many choirs in Malaysia are linked to schools, tertiary educational institutions, churches and other religious institutions, performing arts groups or registered musical societies. As a rule of thumb, any Malaysian choir which is able to attract trained international singers is usually superior in programming and vocal performance and more professional in outlook but such choirs are given very little coverage by the Malaysian media which only promotes all-Malaysian choirs.

Many of the adult choirs listed below actually share common singers, a phenomenon born out of the small pool of choral singers available to choirs in Malaysia. It is not uncommon for a particular choir engaged in a choral project to deplete as many as half a dozen other choirs of their singers. Many of the choirs with younger singers also have a tendency to focus only on choral competitions resulting in their repertoires becoming limited and very stale, with too much emphasis on costumes and choreography and neglecting choral programming, vocal quality and enunciation. It has often been observed that many choirs involved in competitions end up having almost identical repertoires and choral performances by all-Malaysian choirs can sometimes be somewhat predictable and boring, beside giving the audience a sense of déjà vu.2007

The choral tradition in Malaysia is largely promoted by Chinese-language singing societies which also leads to many choirs having excellent repertoires in Chinese but having problems with singing in English and other languages. The only choir in Malaysia which is able to sing at a professional standard in more than a dozen languages is Cantus Musicus and that is because up to half its singers have sung in choirs outside Malaysia and many of them have trained under European opera singers and vocal instructors.

Malaysian choirs suffer from a perpetual problem of obtaining good choral venues as most of the secular performance halls are not properly designed for acoustics and are expensive to rent. Further, some of the best venues are to be found in churches but unlike in Europe or the Americas, churches in Malaysia on the whole forbid choral performances which are not an integral part of the worship service and usually only choirs drawn from those churches are permitted to sing. Only a handful of secular choirs have the luxury of having their own dedicated performance venues.

Performing Christian choral music outside a church setting is a big challenge due to the distinct lack of suitable venues. Most venues which are owned by the state do not permit Christian music at all as a matter of policy and some secular venues are wary of being associated with Christians and do not permit Christian music performances.

Famous quotes containing the word choirs:

    A man’s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends. For every friend whom he loses for truth, he gains a better.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)