KZN choir off to Barcelona
LANGUAGE is as important as lyrics for the KwaZuluNatal Youth Choir, which has its sights set on winning the Golden Voices Festival near Barcelona, Spain, next month.
The last time the choir competed abroad, in Poland in 2015, they won the Bydgoszcz Musical Impressions Competition and Festival but something went awry with the translators.
While the choir heard at backstage that they had won the competition, administrators who accompanied them only received word of their win while on a bus travelling back to their accommodation, choir chairman Raymond Wesner recalled.
“Everything was in Russian. When they announced the winners, we didn’t know it was us.
“It was all Russian to us,” he said.
In Spain, they will enter five categories including classical, folk and sacred categories.
The choir’s Spanish trip will also include performances in cities on the way to Barcelona from Madrid.
Every year the 65-member choir adds some new blood to its ranks, its new members generally being about 14 years old, its oldest around 25, and the average age being 14 to 19. It also takes on an annual theme, this year’s being “Sophiatown”, said Wesner.
Forty choir members will perform in Spain.
Last year, the choir performed around KZN raising money for the Spain trip.
“The highlight of the year was when the choir performed the Karl Jenkins Requiem alongside the Durban Symphonic Choir, accompanied by the renowned KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra at St Joseph’s Cathedral.”
Choir members come from all over the province, including Empangeni, Port Shepstone and the Hermannsburg-Wartburg area and head to Durban for frequent Friday practices at Clifton College where artistic director Gerard’d du Toit is the school’s director of music.
Last week the choir performed at the WAN-Ifra conference at Durban’s International Conference Centre (ICC), to enthusiastic applause.
They will perform at St Mary’s DSG School in Kloof on June 23 ahead of their June 30 departure to Spain. After returning they will again perform in Durban, at Maris Stella Chapel on July 29.
For further information, visit ww.kznyouthchoir.co.za