(Clermont
Community Choir with
Wiseman Mkhize – CEO Clermont Choir Foundation)
The Clermont Community Choir will open the
concert of the acclaimed American Minnesota Orchestra, for the Durban leg of
the orchestra’s five-city tour of South Africa at the Durban City Hall on
Sunday (August 12, 2018).
Conducted by Minnesota Orchestra Music
Director Osmo Vänskä, the tour marks the first-ever visit to South Africa by a
professional U.S. orchestra.
A highlight of the tour will be a piece
specially commissioned as a tribute to Mandela by Classical Movements.
World-acclaimed composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen was commissioned to write a new
work featuring soprano Goitsemang Lehobye which premiered in Minneapolis a few
days ago and was an astonishing success.
The Orchestra is about to travel to South
Africa to perform in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg, as well as
at the historic Regina Mundi Roman Catholic Church in Soweto.
To open the concert in Durban, the city’s own
Clermont Community Choir will be performing a specially curated programme of
local indigenous works as a counter-point to the pieces to be performed by
Minnesota, and to continue the theme of celebrating Madiba during the centenary
year commemorations. The programme to be performed by Minnesota includes
Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, Bernstein’s Candide Overture and Sibelius’s En Saga.
Classical Movements President Neeta Helms
said, “After working in South Africa since 1994, Classical Movements is very
grateful that one of the top orchestras in the United States will make this
historic, first-ever tour to South Africa. It is an enormous undertaking and a
statement of the importance of Africa and the growth of orchestral music in
this most choral of countries. This dynamic and visionary Orchestra is exactly
the right musical ambassador to pave the way for others to follow.”
The Minnesota Orchestra will participate in
a variety of additional education projects with young musicians as part of
their tour. While in Durban, the orchestra will be working closely with the KZN
Youth Wind Band whose members come from all of the province – from Empangeni to
Pietermaritzburg. Just over half of the KZNYWB members come from disadvantaged
communities and have their transport, tuition and touring fees covered through
bursaries from the Durban Music School and Department of Arts & Culture.
KZNYWB musicians also come from a number of schools around Durban.
On Sunday morning, August 12, the entire
KZNYWB will play for Osmo Vänskä the celebrated conductor of the Minnesota
Orchestra as well as several Minnesota musicians. They will play a selection of
pieces from their repertoire. After that the KZNYWB will split up by sections,
with a representative from the Minnesota Orchestra taking a section –The
Minnesota Musicians will share their years of professional experience with tips
and master classes. Later on that day, the entire KZNYWB will attend the Durban
concert as guests of the Minnesota Orchestra.
There are still tickets to the Minnesota
concert - prices range from R100 to R600 and bookings can be done through
Computicket at www.computicket.com/music. For more information, visit
minnesotaorchestra.org/satour
Further
performances take place as follows:
City
Hall, Cape Town (August 10, 2018, at 20h00);
Aula
Theatre, University of Pretoria, Pretoria (August 16, 2018, at 19h30)
Regina
Mundi Roman Catholic Church, Soweto (August 17, 2018, at 19h00)
City
Hall, Johannesburg (August 18, 2018, at 15h00)
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