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The Indian music conductor, voice trainer, music teacher, Augustine Paul, is the son of an illustrious church choir director of yesteryears. He has been singing in the church choir from the age of 10. He holds a Licentiate Diploma in Music from Trinity College, London (L.MusTCL) and a Master of Arts degree in English Literature. He quit a bank job to take up music.
Augustine Paul came to Madras (now Chennai) in 1979 with an M.A. in English and in pursuit of a career in sports. Though he had a fair amount of music during his student days, he could never have dreamt that he would end up with a music career 20 years down the line. He had continued his musical involvement with the Emmanuel Methodist Church Choir in Chennai singing tenor thanks to the then conductor Dr. Kalyan Subramaniam. He joined the Madras Musical Association in 1984 and sang tenor, served as the librarian, Associate Director, before taking over from Dr. Samuel Grubb - the former conductor - in 2008. He is the Music Director of the 118-year-old Madras Musical Association Choir, perhaps the oldest choir in Chennai. The the 80 strong choir is versatile and has a wide repertoire. He has performed with and conducted the choir in concerts in the UK, Australia and Italy.
Since 1994, Augustine Paul is the founder-leader of the Octet Cantabile, a sought after singing double mixed quartet, and has performed in well over 200 concerts in and out of the country. He has done a concert tour of the USA and Malaysia with the Octet Cantabile. The Octet performs various kinds of music from classical to the modern and has been singing together for the past 16 years. The Octet has released six CD's of gospel music. Since 2000, he has been the conductor of the 50-voice Mellow Circle Choir in Chennai, and is the music director for Mellow Circle’s noteworthy Annual Christmas Musical Play.
Augustine Paul plays the piano, guitar and recorder and is adept at choral arrangement. He works in the studios as a choral music conductor and arranger and has worked extensively with Indian music greats like Ilayaraja and the Oscar-winning A R Rahman. Apart from shows in India, he has done various concert tours to UK, Italy, Austria, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Gulf and is instrumental in forming the
MMA Symphony Orchestra.
Augustine is a full-time music teacher, teaching singing, piano and theory of music. The Madras-based musician is the faculty Chief of Pro Musicals, a music school presenting students for the TCL and ABRSM exams. He has been into teaching for over 25 years and has received the best teacher award from Trinity College of Music, Chennai Centre, a number of times. Many renowned church musicians, music directors, playback singers, and classical musicians have worked with him to sharpen their skills and he has produced a number of diploma holders and hundreds of grade 8s. He regularly conducts music and choral workshops in various cities of South India and has judged numerous Choral and singing competitions in the country. He has judged the 2010 Sri Lankan Choral competition along with International adjudicators. |
