Musical director says choir tours teach valuable lessons

BERNARD Kruger says that if music did not exist, he would be a surgeon. In many ways, he sees his current role as musical director as being the same – Kruger dissects a piece of music, removing the heart before reconstructing it.

The world-renowned Kearsney College Choir is his razor-sharp instrument.

How it started

“My mother was a music teacher, and some of my earliest memories are of the underside of a baby grand piano, where I would lie while she worked. I always heard music lessons and music performances – we watched many concerts as a family. My family are educators, and I was surrounded by teachers and music all my life,” says Kruger.

When Kruger joined the National Youth Orchestra in Pretoria, he decided that music was the only career for him.

The musician says, “I decided to study music in Potchefstroom, following which I went to Holland on scholarship, to study conducting and French horn. Those years shaped the way I think about music.”

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What is unique about being part of a choir? And what are the benefits?

Kruger says, “There is something special about being a part of a choir, that I’ve never encountered anywhere else. It’s a magical community of like-minded, creative, empathetic, compassionate people who sing together with a common goal. They travel together and become friends, and that shaped my life. I try to instil that into the groups that I work with now, so they feel part of something bigger than themselves.”

Kruger feels that being part of a choir teaches you to be a better person.

“In a choir, there are many ways and times where you must not think of yourself, and you have to think of others. When singing together, you can’t just start singing when you want to start; you need to listen for when everyone else breathes in, as you need to breathe in with them – and then you start. Someone behind you is being insensitive when they are singing too loudly, and when I sing too loud, I’m being insensitive too,” says Kruger

“There is the commitment of frequent rehearsals or supporting someone who has just received bad news before a performance, or the need to change the routine as someone got injured on the sports field and can’t perform. The boys know the show goes on no matter what. All of these experiences shape you,” he says.

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What makes boys’ choirs special?

“Boys are the same wherever you go. I love working with boys because they don’t know their limits – I find the most difficult music that some adult choirs can’t sing, and I’ve had boys singing the music from memory. I’ve had boys’ choirs singing a requiem for a whole hour from memory; they learn the whole thing and they don’t need to look at the music.

If you bump into them five or 10 years later, they can still sing those same parts. Boys are incredible and I love working with them.”

Kruger has taught younger primary school singers at the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir school and then high school students at Kearsney College.

The European tour

The Kearsney College Choir has recently returned from a successful Austrian and Czech Republic tour where audiences went ‘bonkers’ for the choir’s performances. Kruger says that tours like this teach students invaluable lessons.

“We learnt about culture – it’s a music lesson, history lesson and geography lesson. It’s a classroom outside of the classroom,” he says.

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