Vuyo Mvoko
THE story of the annual Old Mutual National Choir Festival can be summed up in the words: a tale of love fulfilled through years of suffering.
“It’s like a miracle every year,” says Wits School of Music head Carl van Wyk, patron of the festival. “It’s definitely the premier event in the choral calendar.”
Thirty choirs, each of which has won in one of the two sections of the contest in the regional eliminations, will this weekend be vying for top honours in this year’s final.
In the Standard section for 48-member choirs, meant to encourage up-and-coming groups, prescribed songs are Joseph Haydn’s Awake the Harp and South African contemporary composer Lawrence Chonco’s Ekhaya Afrika.
In the Large section, for more experienced choirs with a maximum of 60 voices, the choices are Handel’s From the Censer Curling Rise and local composer M Moerane’s Ruri.
In its 16-year history, the festival might not have produced choirs of the calibre of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But it’s the next best thing: a showcase for South African choral music talent, where humble musicians from disadvantaged communities, with little or no formal music education, can but transcend their numerous limitations and render moving performances of Western classical and African music.
“We are looking forward to great competitiveness in the nicest sense of the word, from the cream of the various regions,” said Douglas Reid, chairman of the competition’s adjudication panel and musicology professor at the University of South Africa.
The National Choir Festival kicks off at 9am this Saturday and Sunday, at the Standard Bank Arena in Johannesburg