(Charlotte Botha)
Interview by Estelle Sinkins
The Drakensberg Boys Choir School, with its emphasis on
music excellence and its heavenly setting in the mountains, has had a special
place in Charlotte Botha’s heart since childhood.
Botha, who conducted the boys when they took to the stage of
the Pietermaritzburg City Hall for Music Revival’s Christmas concert on November
29, says the feeling of “shaping the music with the movement of your arms is
nothing short of magical. It is probably as close as we earth-dwellers will ever
come to experiencing flight.” The concert was one of the last that she did with
the world-renowned choristers.
“It is with a heavy heart that I have decided to leave the
Drakensberg Boys Choir at the end of 2016,” she says. “My intention is to
pursue a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Choral Conducting. I have applied to a
few of the top universities and music schools in the United States and,
depending on the availability of scholarships and fellowships, I will be
studying full time by August 2017.
“In the meantime, I will be living and freelancing in
Pretoria. I am quite excited to move back to Pretoria - where I lived, worked
and studied for 10 years prior to joining the Drakies team - and have some
interesting projects lined up!”
Botha admits, however, that she will be leaving the school
and its pupils with a heavy heart.
“When you put so much of yourself into the craftsmanship of
an instrument like the Drakensberg Boys Choir, it becomes an extension of who
you are as a person,” she adds. “Because there is no other institution in South
Africa that devotes so much time to the training of choristers, I will not
experience this feeling again soon. In these last few months I have been
telling the boys: ‘It is very hard to imagine a me without a you’.”
Asked for a favourite memory of her time at the school, she
says: “If I had to pick one moment it would be this: I was jumping on the
trampoline one day after a tough but successful rehearsal, watching the sun set
behind Champagne Castle while a few boys were singing what I had just taught
them in the distance.
“I remember thinking, ‘This is as good as it gets. This is
the happiest I will ever be. Good luck trying to top this, Future Charlotte’.”
Regards choral music, Botha believes that singing together
is the only team activity where everybody wins.
“A choir singer uses his or her body to produce sound, but
it is through the group that we make music,” she adds. “Therefore each singer
needs to be sensitive to what is happening around him or her, and tune in to
the group. For the time that a choir is together, everyone is working towards
the same goal.
“Choirs set their differences aside in a quest to create
something beautiful that uplifts and inspires others. In a country where
difference often fuels hatred and creates distance, it is absolutely wonderful
to know that there is an art form that binds groups of people with different
opinions and upbringings together in such a significant way.”
A sought-after conductor, composer, ensemble singer, and
teacher of voice, music theory and aural training., Botha is originally from
Klerksdorp. She embarked on an ambitious career as a pianist, percussionist,
chorister and vocal soloist from the age of six.
She has sung under and learned from Bunny Ashley-Botha,
Christo Burger, Andre de Quadros, Jacques Imbrailo, Lone Larsen, Werner Nel,
Ragnar Rasmussen, Lee Shiak Yao, Hanli Stapela, Andre van der Merwe, Johann van
der Sandt and Josep Villa I Casanas.
As a conductor she has worked with the Pretoria High School
for Girls choir, the Singkronies Chamber Choir and the Drakensberg Boys Choir. –
Estelle Sinkins
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