Choral festival held in Orlando in celebrating Africa Day
The choirs took different forms of delivery to the prescribed song.
The City of Johannesburg hosted the annual Choral Festival on Saturday, 25th of May at Orlando East Communal hall.
This year’s festival formed part of Africa Day celebrations that took place all over the continent to commemorate this fundamental day.
“We are trying to bring back choral music and as you see, today is epic. People are being healed by this music because it unifies.
“It enables them to forget about all the bad things that are happening around the community and enjoy themselves today.” Said Nontlantla Sifumba, Member of the Mayoral Committee for Community Development at the City of Johannesburg.
The festival is part of the flagship cultural initiatives of the City of Johannesburg to stimulate choral music development and part of the broader strategy to promote creative industries in Johannesburg.
The festival is in its second year.
Ten choirs took part in this marvellous festival and they all sang the prescribed song “Bayethe Ma-Afrika” by B Cola.
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These choirs took different forms of delivery to the prescribed song, some delivered it harmoniously while others delivered it boldly with a kick of traditional choral music keys. Standard and large choirs also sang “Amabutho” by Bongani Magatyana.
All these choirs were expected to perform one traditional song of their choice which in turn enabled choir members to go an extra mile as to demonstrating traditional dances in a form of expressing their Africanism.
Each choir was expected to deliver a powerful three songs session on stage and the audience was quite pleased and joyous as the ambience echoed sounds of nostalgia and satisfaction at the same time.
The day ended on a high note with a mass choir which performed a heartfelt and melodic “Plea from Africa” by John Knox Bokwe.
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