Choir Festival in a Roofless Church!

5pm June 5, 2010: an invitation for former guests to attend or support..... 

If you have seen the Choir perform at Nkwichi, a small donation of just £10 per guest will go a long way to organise what should be a wonderful event - one that will no doubt be enjoyed by all Nyanjas, independent of age, gender or religion.

 

Background & Objective

Like most African cultures, music in the Niassa District of Mozambique is an integral part of life; each village has between one and three choirs organized through local churches.  However, the local people have had neither exposure to formal musical education nor a venue in which to perform their talents.  MWCT is therefore seeking funding to deliver musical training and organize a choir festival to share the joy of music across sixteen Nyanja villages.

 

Project Description

 

1.      Village Masterclasses

 

The masterclass sessions will provide basic musical education to one choir in each of the sixteen villages of the Manda Wilderness Community Conservation Area.   The sessions will be delivered in April and May with one day of musical training per village.  They will be administered by a volunteer trained in choral singing and musical education and a local translator.  Details of the sessions can be found in the attached masterclass document.

 

2.      Choir Festival

 

The choir festival will take place on Saturday, June 5^th, 2010 and will include sixteen villages.  Choirs will perform together in nearby Cobue, the local administrative centre, inside a roofless, colonial-era stone church.  Villages will select twenty of their best singers amongst existing Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Seventh Day Adventist choirs to enter the competition.  The performances will be evaluated by a table of 4-5 judges according to the attached judging rubric.  Prizes are detailed in the budget below.

Time and budget permitting, the festival may also include performances by local Malawian musical celebrities, a drum-off, and a dance-off.  The masterclass includes a “song-learning workshop” to teach each choir one new, simple, African song to vary their repertoire and musical knowledge.  With every choir having learned this song, they will be able to perform this piece together as one mass choir to finish the festival with a grand, unified sound.

 

 

Thanks for your support!