UP choir sings its way to international award

The University of Pretoria’s (UP) Camerata choir sang its way to the top, beating 200 choirs to win the Grand Prix of Nations youth choir category at the prestigious international Grand Prix of Nations and Third European Choir Games 2017, held recently in Riga, Latvia.

Tuks Camerata conductor Michael Joseph Barrett said the choir represented the university in the most diverse way, performing in folklore and in the mixed youth choir category.

“The students can be very proud of their hard work, which resulted in this significant achievement,” Barrett said.

Professor Theordore van Wyk, head of department: UP Arts, said they were extremely proud because the choir not only represented the department or the university, but the country as a whole.

“They were exceptionally well prepared. The preparation for this tour started in the middle of last year and you can imagine the amount of effort and time that went into this.

“This is a fantastic achievement, especially since most of the members of the choir are not from the arts department, but from a range of study fields, including engineering, music, theology, business and law,” Van Wyk told The Citizen.

All 75 members of the choir are full-time UP students.

The Grand Prix of Nations is an international choir competition open to all nonprofessional choirs around the world. The Grand Prix of Nations Riga 2017 attracted 12 000 singers and 200 choirs.

Tuks Camerata was established in 1968.