Hot off the press... Old Mutual National Choir festival pays it forward through a new volunteer conductor programme The Old Mutual National Choir Festival is launching a pilot project - the Volunteer Conductor Programme – which aims to pair top South African choirs with smaller community school choirs in a bid to expose them to skills, the training, and dedication required to make it into a top flight choir. KwaZulu-Natal’s African Chorus, North West’s Bagale Chorus and Voices of the Nation from Gauteng have each selected a volunteer conductor to mentor each school and help them realise their full potential. A documentary following each schools’ progress over the next 6 weeks will be shot and screened at Old Mutual National Choir Festival grand finale at the Durban ICC over 6-7 December. Audiences will then vote for the best school choir performance. The winning volunteer and school choir will share a R20 000 cash prize, while the runners up will receive musical instruments. Old Mutual sponsorships manager Bandile Mngoma remarked “Old Mutual aims to promote the spirit of volunteerism by encouraging choirs to share their skills with schools in need of arts and culture programmes. The sustainability and growth of arts in our society depends on those with skills – in this case our top choirs – sharing with the youth”. The programme, although simple in its execution, is unique, allowing it to “enable positive futures” for these schools in future choral competitions.“ Added, Mkhize Mandla, the volunteer conductor of African Chorus, “This is an exciting opportunity to give back to the community in an unusual and helpful way. I am looking forward to the process and transforming Lihlithemba Technical High School in Kwa Zulu Natal into something magical.” Lihlithemba Technical High School will be the first school to experience this new programme as the video documenting process begins this weekend, 25 October.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 13:09:24 +0000
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