CHORALIFE | When a Western tradition goes East

Aurelio Porfiri

Back during Aurelio Porfiri’s childhood living in central Rome, choirs singing in churches were undoubtedly a source of inspiration. The Italian director of choral activities at Santa Rosa de Lima School doesn’t recall an exact moment when his interest for music first emerged, but he does remember living in the center of Rome and listening to the choirs: “My mother used to take me to church and I’d like to stay there and hear the choir sing. That’s where it all started.”
Music, for him, is as natural as rain falling. “It was something very natural. I liked it and I saw that I was like a fish in water. I was in my element,” he recalled.
Having previously worked as substitute organist at the Vatican City Vicariate in St. Peter’s Basilica, he travelled to Macau in 2008 to teach at a local university. Six years later, he took the leap to launch a choral music publishing company: Choralife was conceived to provide a platform through which people can buy internationally acclaimed music.
“It’s called Choralife but we may add other music genres,” he said in an interview with the Times.
Although choral music is rooted in Western tradition, Aurelio Porfiri thinks it’s significant that his publishing company is based in Macau: “In a certain way, my publisher also tries to find the best of Asian composers and works toward reaching out to high level mainland Chinese musicians.”
In addition to a CD with his piano improvisations and choral music compositions, CDs to be launched by Choralife will include Western composers, too. Furthermore, DVDs with the schools’ choral performances have also been released.
“Some of my very famous colleagues have already accepted to publish with me. We’ve already released a DVD, ‘A Mother’s Heart’ which I have made with choirs from Our Lady of Fatima School. This is something different, as others [CDs and DVDs] are more classical,” he revealed.
Aurelio sees Choralife as a “glocal” project: based in Asia but reaching out to the world. “We are very open to collaborating with people from anywhere but we are trying also not to lose the specific characteristics of individual countries,” he said.
Prices of CDs and DVDs may differ from country to country depending on the buyers’ purchasing power.
Aurelio Porfiri is also pondering different selling methods, so that Choralife productions can reach a wider audience. “Our website will be completely up and running in September (…) and we will also have agreements with Amazon and iTunes, trying to spread the word as much as possible,” the musician stated.
Starting up a publishing company in Macau, though, isn’t the easiest of tasks, particularly for a foreigner.
“It takes a lot of effort to get things done here when you’re a foreigner (…) but I was very happy with the help I got from IPIM [Macau Trade and Investment Promotion Institute], as they were very supportive,” Aurelio recalled.
Born in Rome, Porfiri started to play the piano at a local church when he was 15 years old. After completing his studies in the Italian capital, he graduated in Choral Music from the Conservatory of Naples.
Between 1993 and 2008, Aurelio was substitute organist at the Vatican City Vicariate in St. Peter’s Basilica. “I learned very much from such experience. I met a lot of people coming there for pilgrimage and I had the opportunity to engage with very high level people, too.” At the same time, between 1999 and 2008, Aurelio Porfiri also worked as director of music for the American church in Rome, Santa Susanna.
In 2008, he was invited to teach at a university in Macau. It was while heading East that Aurelio Porfiri understood the challenges of becoming a teacher.
“I was very lucky to have met Ruben de Freitas Cabral [former rector at Saint Joseph University and professor at Catholic University of Portugal]. He taught me what the true purpose of education is and what the main misconceptions revolving around today’s world are. I am grateful to him as he made me a better teacher,” Aurelio said.
One of the most important lessons he said he learned from Ruben de Freitas Cabral is that “indeed a school or a university does not belong to their staff, but to the students.”
“The staff and the rector are there to serve the students. If they’re not being served properly, it means the culture is wrong, regardless of the institution we’re talking about.”

Catarina Pinto