Choral Music in South Africa

It is good to know that choral music is alive and well in South Africa.
These excerpts from an article written by Barry Smith for the 1996 Salisbury Music festival in England give a good idea of the South African musical scene.

Ex Africa semper aliquid novi.
– Historia Naturalis, II, viii, Pliny)

"There is always something new from Africa."  So wrote the Roman author Pliny almost a thousand years ago. Those who have any knowledge or experience of Africa will know of the unique richness of the various traditions of the music of that continent, particularly the singing of its indigenous peoples .... Unlike their Western counterparts African people see music as essentially an active not a purely passive art, and from their earliest years members of the community express themselves in song and dance, singing harmonies and complicated rhythms with a natural ease and enjoyment. Together the community rejoices in song at a wedding or a birth, or mourns in music at a death or a funeral. Music is essentially of the people and some of the most moving of recent South African choral music grew out of the resistance and freedom songs ...

On the whole the general choral scene in South Africa is a lively and ever-improving one. Although what were once almost exclusively white choral institutions still tend to dominate the choral musical scene in the larger cities, hopefully their expertise and groundwork will continue to assist the empowerment of black choristers and choirmasters. These large amateur choral societies play an especially important role in the musical life of the big cities, often performing with local orchestras, often under visiting guest conductors and with professional soloists as in the case of places like Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Pietermaritzburg. The Cape Town Symphonic Choir (trained by Mark Mitchell) and the Philharmonic Choir (trained by Vetta Wise) are the two major choral societies of the ‘Mother City’ and over the years have performed most of the large-scale choral works together with city orchestras.

Smaller choirs

There are also a number of smaller choral groups scattered around the Cape Town area, notable being the choir attached to the principal Apostolic congregation and the numerous Malay choirs which have a long and proud tradition. Their annual competition in the enormous Cape Town Good Hope Centre attracts crowds in their thousands. Black choirs in the Cape Town area have proliferated over recent years and groups such as the Langa Adult Choir, the Princess Square Singers and the harmony Singers have performed successfully in numerous prestigious concerts and competitions ...

The St George’s Singers (founded in 1964) have performed a wide range of music including first South African performances of many works from the standard repertoires as well as new and commissioned works from South African composers such as Hubert du Plessis, Arnold van Wyk and Peter Klatzow. Acama Fick (formerly in charge of the Stellenbosch University Choir) conducts a fine small group, the Stellenbosch Camerata, whilst other important Cape choral groups are the Cape Male Choir, the Cape Town Ladies’ Choir, the Cape Town Welsh Choir and the Bellville Civic Choir.

There are a number of excellent University choirs spread across the country and many of these have established for themselves fine reputations through nation-wide tours, recordings and broadcasts. Notable among these are the choirs of Stellenbosch, Potchefstroom and Bloemfontein and that of Rhodes University in Grahamstown, founded in 1953 by George Gruber (1904-1979), a former conductor of the Vienna Boys’ Choir. His Rhodes University Choir became a model and inspiration for many of the later South African student choirs and they toured in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Holland and England between 1960 and 1969 until the ever-increasing cultural boycott put an end to their travels ...

There are three prominent choirs in the Cape Town region: the UCT Choir for Africa, which specialises largely in indigenous African music, the University of Cape Town choir, and the choir of the University of the Western Cape.

Children and youth

Youth choirs are an important feature of the South African choral scene, among them the fine Drakensberg Boys’ Choir, the Natal Youth Choir, The Pretoria Youth Choir, the Bloemfontein Children’s Choir and the Tygerberg Children’s Choir which has won numerous awards at overseas competitions ...

But by far the largest group of choirs in South Africa is that attached to the various churches throughout the country where standards vary from the excellent to the appalling. The English Cathedral all-male choral tradition is still maintained at St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town and at St Mary’s Collegiate Church in Port Elizabeth, where traditions hark back to the early nineteenth century, but for the most part church choirs consist of mixed voices. The lack of suitably trained choirmasters is perhaps the biggest problem facing choral music in the churches and there are relatively few opportunities for those wishing to improve their knowledge of the art.

The four South African branches of the Royal School of Church Music have done much to assist the amateur singer and choir trainer, though once again lack of funding, the RSCM’s essentially English Anglican image, and the daunting task means that their work merely scratches the surface. The lack of easily available choral sheet music and the extremely high prices for imported music have also been a problem for local choirs with limited budgets wishing to expand their repertoires.

Indigenous music

Early missionaries regarded indigenous music as pagan and strongly discouraged its use in Christian worship. Fortunately such narrow attitudes are a thing of the past and the Catholic church (closely followed by some Anglican parishes) has already realised the value of restoring such music to the church liturgy. Under the pioneer musician priest Dr Dave Dargie, formerly of the Lumko Mission and now Professor of Music at Fort Hare University, excellent work has already been done and traditional music featuring instruments such as marimbas has been incorporated. As more opportunities present themselves for black singers in the ‘new’ South Africa, choral workshops and competitions sponsored by major companies are being arranged with the result that standards are continually rising.

Choral singing is the most important musical feature of the black South African way of life and, given the opportunities for learning and improving, there is no reason why choirs in this country should not become some of the best in the world.

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