The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Minnesota singers join with S. African choir
Back in August 2018, in a South African school, a pair of sopranos sang and swayed together. Maya Tester and Thulisile Ntetha were from different choirs, different continents. But minutes into their first rehearsal, they were chatting and laughing.
“We just clicked,” said Ntetha. More than a year later, the pair giggled as they told the story in a very different setting: Tester’s south Minneapolis kitchen.
Tester, a member of the Minnesota Chorale, hosted Ntetha, her husband and her cousin — all singers with the Johannesburg-based Gauteng Choristers — for a trio of concerts that also served as a reunion of sorts. The Minnesota Orchestra program featured singers from Minnesota and South Africa who first performed together during the orchestra’s historic tour of that country last year.
Getting two dozen South African singers to Minnesota was a pricey proposition. To help, members of the Minnesota Chorale and the Minnesota Orchestra offered up beds in their guest rooms and seats at their dining room tables. For some, the weeklong stay was a continuation of friendships that sparked during that first rehearsal and persisted via Facebook Messenger.
“When we left that day, I knew, I told everybody: They are coming. They have to come,” said Tester. “It’s not a partnership if we just go there. It’s not a collaboration if it’s just one way.
“The Chorale members who were at that rehearsal all walked out saying, ‘Somehow, we’ve gotta get them here.’”
They greeted the South Africans at the airport with signs and winter coats.
For many of the Gauteng singers, this was their first trip to the United States. It was Sizwe Nkwanyana’s first time on a plane. During the 16-hour connecting flight to Atlanta, he refused to sleep “because I just wanted to feel everything.” The 40-year-old Soweto resident conducts at his church and teaches music to children. “To me, this is a dream,” Nkwanyana said. “Me being here, it will inspire a lot of young ones, especially the ones that I teach, because they’ll see that dreams do come true.”
Despite the below-zero windchill, the group explored the Twin Cities, snapping photos at Minnehaha Falls, in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and at the Mall of America. At each stop — and on the train between — they sang.