The UCT and NMMU Choirs will be in concert on Friday 7 September 2012 from 19h00 at the South Campus Auditorium of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
The UCT Choir is the most diverse musical group at the University of Cape Town. It is a fully student-run ensemble which welcomes students from every faculty and discipline, as well as alumni and external members.
The forty-person choir is an active participant in the musical life of Cape Town. Singers and audiences are exposed to a rich variety of choral music from classical to contemporary genres, drawing strongly on our own South African musical heritage.
Annual events include participation in the Last Night of the Proms charity concerts in the Cape Town City Hall, a Winter Concert at St Paul’s Church in Rondebosch and various other performances on campus and around Cape Town. The year always ends with the choir’s showcase ‘Jammie Concert’ in Jameson Hall on UCT’s Upper Campus.
This year, the UCT Choir released its second CD in February and participated in the ‘Infecting the City’ public arts festival in March. In May, the UCT Choir was awarded three diplomas (90-100%) as well as the prize for the Most Outstanding Senior Choir in the Cape Town Eisteddfod.
The UCT Choir has not embarked on a national tour for nearly a decade. This year’s tour to the Eastern Cape via the Garden Route in September will include collaborations with the Rhodes University Chamber Choir and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Choir, opportunities to perform with school choirs in Grahamstown and spontaneous ‘flash mobs’ at various towns en route.
These performances will provide an opportunity to strengthen intervarsity ties as very few possibilities for such musical collaborations exist. Furthermore, this tour will offer new audiences – both young and old – the opportunity to be exposed to the Cape’s (and the UCT Choir’s) unique choral music tradition. Finally, such a tour will provide valuable recreational time for reinforcing lifelong bonds amongst singers within the choir and will provide a fitting culmination to several years of hard work and musical development.
John Woodland has been the musical director of the UCT Choir since 2010. He is currently studying for an MSc in chemistry at UCT.
John matriculated from Bishops (Diocesan College) in 2005. That same year, he attended the Oundle Organ Festival in England and was subsequently invited to perform in the Netherlands. The following year, John was the Claude Brown Organ Scholar at Bishops and accompanied the school choir on its tour to Russia. In 2007 he received the Cape Organ Guild Barrow-Dowling Scholarship and completed his licentiate in organ performance (LTCL) with distinction. John has been a presenter on Fine Music Radio 101.3 FM since 2006.
UCT Repertoire 2012:
- If ye love me: Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585)
- The Crown of Roses: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
- Oculi omnium: Charles Wood (1866-1926)
- Laila mistareia (‘Night is spreading’): Thomas Rajna (b. 1928)
- Two songs from the /Xam: Peter Klatzow (b. 1945)
- The Riddle Song: John Rutter (b. 1945)
- Mitä kaikatat kivonen?: Mia Makaroff (b. 1971)
- Sarie Marais: Afrikaans traditional, arr. Cecilia van Tonder
- Three negro spirituals: Traditional, arr. Michael Tippett (1905-1988)
- I’m goin’ up a-yonder: Walter Hawkins, arr. Martin Sirvatka
- Seasons of Love (from ‘Rent’): Jonathan Larson, arr. Roger Emerson
- Hallelujah : Leonard Cohen, arr. Barrie Carson Turner
- Blackbird: Lennon/McCartney, arr. Daryl Runswick/John Woodland
- God Only Knows: Beach Boys, arr. Stephen Carletti
The UCT Choir also sings a diverse range of traditional South African choral music including:
- Mamaliye (A song of celebration)
- Senzenina? (‘What have we done?’, a famous apartheid struggle song)
- Ukuthula (‘Peace’, a traditional Zulu lullaby)
- Magaliesburgse Aandlied (a traditional Afrikaans lullaby)
- Bawo, Thixo Somandla (‘Father, God Almighty’, a Xhosa protest song)
- Memeza (‘Me against them’, a Zulu protest song)
- Modimo (‘Mighty God, we thank you’, a Sesotho praise song)
- Phatha-phatha! (Traditional, arr. Silindokuhle Mavuso/Thembinkosi Khumalo)
Alan Straton
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