Saturday and Sunday, 5-6 October saw the Stellenbosch University Choir (USK) sell out their final performance of 2019, at their home grounds of Endler Hall in Stellenbosch. This comes after an extremely successful month for the 100+ sized singing group, who flew to Potchefstroom for the biannual Kuesta Choir Festival for South African University Choirs, held at North-West University from 21-23 September 2019. Following the festival, the USK toured to audiences in Pretoria and Soweto and the week after televised a live performance on the popular breakfast show – Expresso.
This success is not uncommon to the USK, that currently holds the number one spot on the Interkultur World ranking List of the top 1000 international choirs. The USK choir has been conducted by composer André van der Merwe since 2003.
Second year BA Drama and Theatre Studies student and tenor two in the USK, Caleb Felix (20), began singing choir when he was in grade one. He first worked with Van der Merwe while attending Stellenberg High School, singing for Van der Merwe’s boys choir.
“The main thing is our work ethic. I don’t think anywhere in the world people work like us, you know, for a choir,” says Felix who joined the choir at the beginning of this year. Felix goes on to speak on the choir’s rehearsal process. USK begin their repertoire preparation a year prior to their year of performance. “We’re ahead of the game always,” says Felix.
Felix believes that their group’s work ethic emanates from their conductor. “I think having a conductor that is not just a musical expert but a performing, theatrical, educated person, in that sense, just helps us in creating the magic. He just adds this incredible theatrical thing to the choir that does set us apart.”
Second year BA Humanities student and alto one in the USK, Chandree Lineveé (19), like Felix, had very early choral beginnings. For both Lineveé and Felix, the highlight of their choral year was their Heritage Day performance at the Meadowlands Zone Three 7th Day Adventist Church in Soweto. Felix describes the audience as being predominantly black.
Felix talks on the racial dynamics of the choir saying, “we’re becoming more and more diverse but still the matter of the fact is that we’re still predominantly white.” Felix says USK don’t often get to perform to such an audience, especially not in Stellenbosch. “They embraced us like we have never been embraced before,” he says.
On the topic of race and choir Lineveé says, “What I really admire about André is his love for diversity. He tries his best to be inclusive at all times. Even though sometimes people feel like he’s being indulgent or superficial, we as his choir members can completely understand this and we appreciate what he does… Stellenbosch has a very racist history, if I can put it that way, he tries his best to surpass that and break that mould and break that idea of Stellenbosch University choir as a European choir. There’s mostly white kids in the choir. He tries to break that mould and he adds elements of not just South Africa but global cultures.”
Lineveé talks on their opening performance of the decolonised version of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika saying “because of the history of the place and because of the origins of the song – it was something else.” She continues: “They saw our hearts on the stage tonight.”
The Sowetan audience appears to not be the only ones embracing the USK’s performance of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. A posting of the USK’s performance went viral on Twitter receiving over 112.4 k views and rising. The performance was retweeted by influential figures such as Black Coffee and the MEC of Gauteng, David Makhura. This is nothing new for the choral group, with many of their performances reaching the millions on Youtube.
Stellenbosch University Choir sing their rendition of Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, led by conductor André van der Merwe. Source: Stellenbosch University.
While, Sunday may be the last performance for USK in 2019 it is by no means the last time many of the choir members will share the same stage. Third year BMus student and alto one, Margariet Swart (22), says before applying there was already an expectation that those joining the choir would commit to a minimum of two years. This is all in preparation for USK’s tour to Flanders, Belgium next year to retain their title at the World Choir Games.
Only 11 of the 100+ members are leaving the group, mainly due to graduating, announced van der Merwe at their closing concert.