AT THE 10TH WORLD CHOIR GAMES IN SOUTH AFRICA, NIGERIA HARVESTS LAURELS
The world came together with various voices from across the globe singing in harmony at the 10th World Choir Games held in Tshwane (Pretoria) South Africa from July 4 to 14. This would be the first time in Africa since inception. With the theme “Various Voices, One Harmony”, it was indeed 11 days of global unity and merging of different cultures of the world with conviviality and devoid of rancor, and any kind of discrimination. Over 300 choirs from 62 countries which cut across five continents of the world were in attendance and competed on same stages, co-habited in hotels and hostels, shared tables and same meals in a massive central dinning hall at the University of Pretoria. Of great significance in 2018 World Choir Olympics is the co-celebration with the great Nelson Mandela’s posthumous centenary birthday.
At the opening ceremony on July 4 at the cosy Sun Arena, there were felicitations from the Premier of Gauteng Province, the President of Interkultur, Gunter Titsch, the Executive Mayor of Tshwane, Councillor Solly Msimanga, who welcomed all participants. There was also greetings from Mzwandile Matthew who doubles as the President of African Cultural Development Foundation and the South African Choral Music Association. The performances at the opening ceremony were significantly African with extensive singing, drumming and dancing in exclusive African style.
Competitions, friendship concerts, evaluation concerts started on July 5 in various locations which include the two main universities in Pretoria – The University of Pretoria and University of South Africa, Pretoria. Friendship concerts were free performances in the city squares, public venues, parks, streets or malls. Both local and international choirs brought their music to the host city, its residents and visitors. They presented their repertoires in a relaxed atmosphere and had the opportunity to sing for each other outside competitive stress.
Sunday, July 8 was specially marked as the African Mayoral Legacy Concert. African choirs from Nigeria, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya and Namibia joined the local Tshwane choirs as they took some time off from the World Choir Games competitions to celebrate the African Legacy Concert. This was hosted by the Executive Mayor of Tshwane (Pretoria), Councillor Solly Msimanga, and sponsored by Sun International. In keeping with the World Choir Games theme of building bridges through choral music, the African celebration concert emphasises social cohesion and creating new bonds of friendship. Nigeria’s significant representation in the concert was by two soulful renditions by Lagos City Chorale greeted by loud ovations, and later, a meeting and photo session with the Mayor.
The bi-annual meeting of the World Choir Council took place at Tshwane House in the city centre on Monday, July 9. Council representatives from over 50 countries and different continents were present at the meeting. Solly Msimanga, the Executive Mayor of Tshwane welcomed the participants. The President of Interkultur, Gunter Titsch in his opening speech reiterated that aim of the World Choir Games which is to foster peace and unity among the nations of the world through sweet harmony of choral music. The topic “Studying Opportunities for Choral Conductors and Choral Managers” was the major focus. At the section of “Interacting with Interkultur” anchored by the Director of Choral Networking, Gent Lazri, Sir Emeka Nwokedi, Nigeria’s representative at the council regretted poor attendance from African countries and urged Interkultur to use more of international popular media to reach a wider audience as that will create awareness in African countries and will consequently evoke interest which will subsequently attract sponsorship for African choirs to the World Choir Games. He further called on the Interkultur to consider hosting an African Choir Games taking a cue from European and Asian Choir Games. He expressed hope that Nigeria would host the African Choir Games in future as Nigeria is a singing nation and her choirs are doing well in international choral festivals and competitions.
The festival rolled to an end on Saturday, July 14 with three great events – the Parade of Nations, the Awards Ceremony and the Closing Ceremony which was held in Sun Arena. The Parade of Nations was very colourful as choirs from different countries, in their national colours processed from the Tshwane house to the historical Union Building where Nelson Mandela’s statue stood tall. Nigeria’s flag was flown by five choirs from Nigeria – Lagos City Chorale, Mountain Top Chorale, New Wine Chorale, Musica Casa and Riverbank School Choir.
In the awards ceremony, different choirs won Bronze, Silver and Gold Medals. Remarkably, the five Nigerian Choirs won laurels (Silver and Gold) in different categories.
The closing ceremony was quite colourful with remarkable programmes. The festival choir consisting of over 1,000 voices from different countries with Lagos City Chorale representing Nigeria was thunderous in rendering the Festival Song – One Voice composed by John Rutter and Singo-manqoba where the South African composer, Dr. Sibongile Khumalo took the solo as well as seven other songs. The high point of the event is handing over the mantle to the representative of Flanders, Belgium – the host of the 2020 World Choir Games. It was a hilarious festival indeed.
Kudos to the organisers of the 10th World Choir Games – The Interkultur, African Cultural Development Foundation, Gauteng Tourism Authority and the City of Tshwane for their conviction that peace and unity of the world could be achieved through the sweet concord of choral music. We once again stress the importance of the choral arts which is the soul of every culture and urge our Governments and Corporate bodies to give support to the World’s choral movement which will help in no small way in lifting out nation and uniting the world just like football and other sporting events.