Choir enchants at St Mark's

GEORGE NEWS - A wonderful evening of vibrant choral music was provided last Tuesday, 24 October, by the South Cape Children's Choir (SCCC).

The SCCC were under the baton of Jan-Eric Swart, and the Schola Cantorum, Cardinal Vaughan Boys Choir of London under the direction of Scott Price.

Music lovers, friends and families were privileged to hear these exceptional choirs in St Mark's Cathedral.

The SCCC opened the programme with Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika, in an arrangement of intricate, winding harmonies by Jan-Eric Swart, turning the National Anthem into a real concert item.

They followed this with John Leavitt's Festival Sanctus.

The beauty of this choir is their 'whole' sound with no outstanding voices to detract and their unaccompanied singing was immaculate.

Highlights of their programme were the beautiful Afrikaans song Karoonag with accompaniment on drum and a motor car wheel rim, and Swilohini, a vibrant ethnic song with lots of movement.

They finished their section of the programme with Michael Bojeser's lovely Eternity.

The Schola Cantorum has a tour programme from which they select items.

They opened with Exultate Justi by the Italian Franciscan friar Lodovico Viadana.

Again, this is a very well trained choir with superb dynamic control and tone.

The next three items were excerpts from three masses; a Kyrie, Gloria and Agnus Dei by Victoria, Mozart and Goller respectively.

The highlights of their programme were Mendelssohn's Hear My prayer and Oh, for the Wings of a Dove.

The South Cape Children's Choir during a recent performance.

To give the audience the benefit of hearing as much of the choir's repertoire as possible, Scott Price chose to split up the solo parts between all his treble soloists, which led to an interesting version of this well-known work.

Also included in the programme was the Oscar-winning score for the film Life of Pi, which was well received. The next item was Ukuthula, a new song that the choir learnt while in Soweto.