Pretoria varsity choir to tour Botswana

LEKOPANYE MOOKETSI
Correspondent | Friday November 20, 2009 00:00

Tawana will be touring the country with the University of Pretoria Choral Choir  from December 3. The choir will also perform with Ndingo Johwa during the tour. 

They would  play some of Johwa's songs that they have modified as well as Tawana's own compositions during performances in Gaborone, Francistown, Maun and Kasane.
Maun Lodge, Tati River Lodge in Francistown, Opera House and Meriting Spar are sponsoring the tour.

While in the country, the music students will also visit cultural sites and conduct workshops.

Tawana said jazz promotions company, Street Horn Promotions, is assisting them to promote their tour. 

Even after the tour, Street Horn Promotions would be helping him promote choral music in Botswana.

He said in future they would invite South African choral choirs to perform in Botswana to boost the music genre and cement ties between the two SADC neighbours.

Tawana has found that choral music has become the in- thing in South Africa; so he would like to popularise it in this country. 

He said in Botswana, choral music is mostly promoted in primary schools.  'We should have choral groups and start organising competitions,' he said about his vision.

Tawana revealed that the Pretoria University Choral Choir is versatile.
 The Choir has a full indigenous programme embracing all the 11 official languages of South Africa as well as other African languages.  This programme includes narration, dance, songs and praise poetry.  During the rendering of the programme the choristers are dressed in their different traditional attires.

The choir also does extensively Western choral, fusion of jazz and folk songs, African choral, gumboot dancing, poetry and drama.  During the rendering of this programme, the choristers are dressed in their formal choir uniform.

The Pretoria Choral Choir has performed at some international events.  In 2001, the choir collaborated with the Musicatarezz of France and held a series of concerts in Paris, France.

The following year, the Choir represented South Africa at the World Choir Olympics in Busan, South Korea.  The Choir won a bronze medal.  The former South African  Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Ben Ngubane chose the Choir to represent the country at the 2002 World Choir Olympics.

In South Africa, the Choir participated in the Grahamstown Arts Festival.  During the 2005 festival they became the only group of its kind to feature on the SABC 2 Saturday morning Live Arts festival programme for an entire hour.

The Choir's repertoire included all the 11 languages plus Swahili.  They also performed the first movement from the world famous Congolese Mass 'Missa Luba'. 

The choir performs at the Grahamstown festival on a bi-annual basis.
The Choir also organises an annual four universities' concert where it hosts university choirs like Wits Choir, University of Johannesburg Kingsway choir and University of Limpopo. 

In 2007, the UP Choral together with the University of the North West, hosted the Ubuntu choral festival aimed at the moral rejuvenation of young people and innovating choral music so that it can be relevant to the youth.

The UP choral is also engaged in social responsibilities projects. 
'Ours is a song of courage to prove that Africans can still be truly African.  It is a song of hope, one that places African values and honour instead of greed and corruption. 

The Choir continues to aim at building a strong quality singing group and to contribute towards the cultural developments of the students and the community,' reads a message on their profile.

Meanwhile, Tawana said they would be touring the country because he would like to introduce the music that he learnt at the university. 

'My intention is to compose choral music,' he said, adding that there are a few choral music composers in the country.  He said some of the compositions sung in the country were done in South Africa.

Tawana himself has been involved in music from a tender age. 
When he was a teacher at Mahube Primary School in Francistown, he was in charge of the school's choral choir.  He was also one of the founder members of the Marang Choral Choir.

But after sometime, Tawana forgot about music for about 10 years as he embarked on farming. But eventually  he returned to his passion.  He applied to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University to study music and was later transferred to the University of Pretoria.