“WHO is she?” was the question whispered through Cradock’s Moederkerk recently.
At the microphone, a shy girl in a glamorous gown held the audience spellbound with her powerful soprano voice.
It was a “star is born” moment when an audience realised they were in the presence of a major new talent.
This was one of the many unforgettable interludes in a programme that showcased the bounty of Cradock’s music talent. The concert opened the programme for the Karoo Writers Festival.
The young diva was Anelisiwe Mpompa, and she sang Puccini’s “O’ Mio Babbino Caro”and “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. She has trained her own voice, listened to recordings and worked with her friends in a local choir. She won an SABC2 Showville award last year.
Visitors were taken completely by surprise by her voice and by the scale of the programme which included performances by soloist J.P Barnardo, two large school choirs, a four-piece ensemble and a marimba band.
“Is this a competition? A regional thing?” asked a visitor from Grahamstown.
“No, it’s just the result of a phonecall,” one of the festival organisers told him. Such is the passion for music in the region.
Choir mistress Anne Bekker had been approached about a music presentation for the opening night of the festival. She agreed without missing a beat, and mustered a legion of talent.
She, herself, directed the concert’s centrepiece: a choir of 60 voices from the preparatory school and Cradock High. This is a personal project: she takes the young learners for choir practice twice a week and the seniors three times a week, helping to fill the arts and culture gap that is yawning in much school-level education.
Bekker comes from a family of music teachers and she did music as a matric subject. She is a qualified Grade 1 to 3 teacher and has worked at the preparatory school for 25 years.
The programme for the Writers Festival concert also featured nine marimbas with 21 young marimba players under the direction of Marinda Venter.
The 40-strong choir from JA Calata Secondary School presented a selection of folk songs, their powerful voices swirling through the audience in faultless counterpoint.
The choir has flourished for 23 years under director Lubhelu Vabaza. He is unstinting in his praise of his young deputy director, Luzuko Mekile, who led the choir for the concert.
Luzuko and soprano Anelisiwe are cousins. They both belong to the Middelburg Harmony singers which includes voices from Cradock and Middelburg.
They coach one another during the weekend choir camps which they hold twice a month.
The young Cradock Ensemble contributed two interludes for the concert. Twins Brendan and Jerian Julisen (both on wind instruments), Zolile Faniso (voice and violin) and Bradley Klaasen (keyboard) make up this talented group.