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NEWS
In August 2009 the Choir received an invitation from the London Welsh Male Voice Choir to participate in The London Welsh Choral Spectacular which will be held in the great hall at Alexandra Palace on 21 July 2012. This concert will form part of the cultural festivities to be in London prior the opening of the London Olympic Games, and a new work will be premièred specially for the event by Karl Jenkins. It is the intention of the organisers that 1000 Male Voices will participate, and that there are to be 200 from each continent. This is seen as a great opportunity to represent our city, our country and also our continent. It will be a most inspiring experience for all who take part. Our participation will of course be subject to our being able to raise the necessary funds to cover the costs of the venture. A dedicated fund raising committee has been established, and has already embarked upon the formidable task of raising the necessary material support to enable us to go. We will post further notifications on our website from time to time in connection with this venture. If you feel that you can assist us in any way at all, we would be most grateful if you would contact the Chairman of our fundraising sub-committee, Andy Ismay on 082-572-2551 or andy@quicktint.co.za
Henry Stubbings, 26 May 2009: AMAZING GRACE This was an enjoyable performance. Voices blended well. A good sense of harmony. Don't be scared to sing piano parts with the same energy as the forte parts. Tenors tend to go over pitch on the high notes - relax jaws. There is Nothin' Like a Dame Very entertaining. Keep it tight in the fast parts. Well done soloists. We enjoyed your interaction with the audience. Well done also on on animated facial expressions! We were awarded a high diploma – a diploma has a score range of between 90% and 100%. 13 March 2009: A BENEFIT CONCERT
Dear All (Sponsors, Donors, Concert Attendees, CTMVC, Beverley, Family and Friends)
The Benefit Concert last night was a resounding success and a splendid occasion. The Cape Town Male Voice Choir was magnificent, not to mention the exquisite voice of Beverley Chiat. Everyone had a wonderful time, and many even asked for another concert to be held just so that they could enjoy the beautiful sounds again. We are extremely pleased to report that the proceeds of the entire fund-raising campaign, including ticket sales and numerous donations, have amounted to R40.000 towards our target of R100.000.
So many people, family, friends and volunteers - some, who we only became acquainted with whilst fundraising, have unselfishly dedicated hours of their precious time to assist with the realization of Jody’s cochlear implant. For this, we are eternally grateful. We are very excited to report that the actual operation for Jody’s first cochlear implant has been scheduled for 29 June this year (2009), and we are hopeful that it will have a significant impact on Jody’s ability to hear and that she will have a brighter future, thanks to you!
Thank you once again, 19 December 2008: THE FINAL CONCERTS OF 2008 Saturday 6 December 2008 dawned as any other summer’s day in Cape Town ... hot and with blue skies. A perfectly ordinary day for most Capetonians, but not for the men of the Cape Town Male Voice Choir.
The concert which was a mixture of classic, show, pop and traditional songs was interspersed with some action and fun items performed by Choir members. These items proved to be real crowd pleasers. The whole first half, which belonged to the Choir, was a great success and drew a huge amount of praise from the audience. The second half belonged mainly to the South Arican Navy Band who performed admirably (no pun intended) under the baton of Commander Kenny Liebrand. The Choir joined in for the last four numbers, and the programme finished in a standing ovation. All credit for the Choir’s performance must go to Margie Barlow, who worked tirelessly on our diction, musicality and discipline. These three attributes attracted particular praise from some eminent musicians after the show.
Our choral year was rounded off by our annual attendance in Carols by Candlelight at Kirstenbosch Gardens. Surely this was the Highlight of most Capetonian’s year. This event was attended by an estimated 6000 people on Sunday alone! The combination of a brass band, choir, and narrated enactment of the Nativity all combined to make a truly amazing evening. The final number - Silent Night - sees everyone swaying from side-to-side with their candles held aloft. An awe-inspiring sight if ever there was one. This was a lovely and fitting end to a successful year ... and here’s to 2009 being even better! Yours in singing,
Mike McWatts 24 September 2008: OUR TOUR TO HERMANUS On experiencing my first weekend jaunt with the Choir, I thought that I would put together a summary of the Hermanus weekend as seen through the eyes of a typical choir member. After putting in a morning's work on Friday 12 September I dashed home, collected together my required gear, and was taxied by my wife to our Tuesday headquarters for what was to be the start of our Hermanus Tour. An air of excitement was already tangible amongst the assembled trees and people as cases, suit bags and personal equipment of various types was unloaded and re-loaded into the chosen transport. John Bolton was to be our bus driver, as Rhett had failed to arrive in time to sign the relevant papers allowing insurance cover. It was some time after the allotted deadline of 3:00 p.m. that the elusive Mr Molyneux arrived, having had to return home to fetch his forgotten suit! A spirited dash, or as spirited as it could be in a bus towing a trailer, saw us catch up with the afternoon traffic at the cooling towers, a long tiresome crawl which stretched as far as the airport exit. Fairly heavy traffic continued as far as the pass and only after cresting Sir Lowry's Pass did we start to make any progress. After negotiating the town of Hermanus itself, we set off on the road to Stanford. Then we discovered that we only had vague directions to our accommodation. At one stage we even entered a property via an electric gate, descended up a very steep road and eventually (having realised we in the wrong property) had to negotiate our way out again to the smell of a very overheated clutch! Full credit to John in his antics of reversing, forwarding, re-reversing and finally pointing us in the right direction, no easy feat in a van full of 11 people plus a trailer. I would choose him in a tight situation anytime! After this débâcle, we continued with a variety of instructions, passing a crew of black road workers about 4 times. I'm sure that they thought that we were "cruising" for girls in the end. Finding the Ivey property at last, we unloaded, chose beds and changed into our official garb for the concert. A short journey into the town and finding a parking spot right outside the venue, we proceeded to unload our stands ... only to discover as the last one came out of the trailer that they were not required!!! A too short warmup ensued (and eventually had to be curtailed) as the audience were amassing in the foyer and anxious to come in. We adjourned to an adjoining hall and continued with a "quiet" practice until it was time to line up. The concert itself turned out to be a great success in spite of some glitches in the first half. A very receptive audience gave us a standing ovation at the end (and this after an encore) ... testament indeed as to how they enjoyed it.
Following the inherent tension of the concert we escaped to the Burgundy
I decided to give it the best at 7:30 a.m. the following morning and rose, showered and was down on the stoep having breakfast before most of the loft brothers realised that life existed. A short walk down to the lagoon, through the wooded shoreline, past an idyllic natural pool and back through a fern field confirmed my initial suspicions that life was good. I would have scant difficulty in having to endure the Ivey lifestyle!! Our arranged tour to the Abalone farm (which was not something high on my priority list) turned out to be a real winner. Those who rushed back to Cape Town missed out on a wonderfully enlightening experience. The sheer size of the undertaking is staggering, 9 million creatures that take 5 years to reach saleable size, 8 million gallons of sea water pumped through the farm every hour, a system of tanks that would stretch 26 km if laid end to end, 240 staff covering engineers, vets, electricians, technicians as well as marine scientists and a myriad of manual workers keep the place humming 24/7, 365 days a year. If you missed out then MAKE A PLAN. It was an awe inspiring experience and a testament to man's ingenuity. Finishing the tour, it was time to head back and Mike W took over the trailer duty at this stage, making John's job so much easier. A lunch stop at Houwhoek farm stall was a welcome break in the journey and a real eye opener for me. Sitting at a table of 9 souls, I was the only one to order a beer and I witnessed Steve order a chocolate milk shake. I kid you not. My faith was only partially restored when late arrivals Rhett and Bill both ordered beers! The final haul back to St Thomas's was uneventful and we arrived seconds before our ETA of 3 p.m. It was a wonderful experience, and a fantastic exercise in camaraderie. Far too seldom do we get to get to know each other on this level and tours like this are invaluable in cementing the team feeling. In previous years I would have been one of the cynics to decry such phrases as team building or male bonding, but having taken part in a few tours of this kind, I'm now of a different opinion. May the trend continue, and I look forward to our next one. Final and utter thanks must inevitably go to Margie, for without her pleading, cajoling, instruction, threats and praises we would not be the Choir we are, and I urge everyone to read Mike Mathews' letter of thanks regarding the concert. It's a fitting tribute to Margie's undying patience. Yours in singing,
Mike McWatts 11 May 2008: A MID-YEAR NEWSLETTER The first quarter of 2008 passed even quicker than usual! No doubt this was largely due to a very hectic programme of practices and concerts, all of which have helped to put the Choir on an ever sounder footing. After a relatively short year-end break, we started with the Diamond Diva concert, which was arranged and presented by Aviva Pelham to mark her 60th birthday. Proceeds went to various deserving causes, and the concert was held at the Artscape Opera House in Cape Town on 17 January 2008. It gave the Choir a marvellous opportunity to perform on a larger stage ... and in the company of such luminaries as the Cape Town Opera, Dance for All, James Bhemjee and a host of others. Presented to a full house, the concert proved to be so successful that Aviva was asked to perform it again a further three times! Accordingly we returned to the Artscape on the nights of 16th, 17th and 18 April 2008. Although it was demanding in terms of choir members’ time, it was certainly worth the effort. It will greatly help in terms of the exposure that it gave us. Once again, we were involved with the Wynberg Rotary’s Last Night of the Proms at the City Hall on 29 and 30 March 2008. This is one of the highlights of our calendar. It also helps to keep the name of the CTMVC up front, so we value this opportunity to perform there. This year the material was substantially different from previous years, so we had to put in a special effort to assimilate new material in such a short time. We believe that this kind of pressure brings out the best in us, and so it has proved! More recently we were asked by St Paul’s Church in Bree Street, Cape Town to perform at a concert to celebrate their 150th birthday on 20 April 2008. Here we were able to perform a large selection from our repertoire. We were once again fortunate to work with the well-known tenor James Bhemjee, and we hope to have further contact with him in the near future. Our Annual General Meeting was held on 22 April 2008. It was confirmed that the club's finances were in order, and a largely unchanged committee was elected. A special sub-committee was appointed to give us some focus in the areas of marketing and membership development. Our thanks go to Peter Barry and Henry Stubbings for agreeing to take on this responsibility. To the great relief of most members, we now have a break in the concert schedule until after the mid-year recess. This will give us time to work on the many new items in our repertoire which we hope to present to you later on in the year. The next two concerts will be at Pinewood Retirement Village on 24 June 2008, and then we have been asked to perform at the Baxter Theatre’s Morning Melodies concert on 30 July 2008, where our new repertoire will be extensively featured. We look forward to reporting again with details of the later half of the year’s activities once our programme has been finalised ... and please diarise our Annual Festive Concert in the Cape Town City Hall which will be held on Saturday 6 December 2008! 3 February 2008: MORE FOR 2008 We are pleased to report that the Choir is already extremely busy preparing a full concert schedule for the first half of the year, having come off the usual end of year "high" at our Celebration Concert. This concert was held in the Cape Town City Hall on 30 November 2007 before an audience of about 750 people. The the South African Navy Band under the baton of Commander Kenny Leibbrandt was great, and the soloists were in fine voice ... and that’s the audience speaking, not us! We then performed at all four nights of the annual Carols by Candlelight at Kirstenbosch. Some of our members assisted at the similar function in the Tokai Arboretum on 17 December 2007, so the break after that was welcome and well deserved. We had an early start to the new year with our appearance at Aviva Pelham’s Diamond Diva concert in the Artscape Theatre on 23 January 2008. This concert, a celebration of Aviva’s 60th birthday, played to a packed Opera House and was greeted with much acclaim. It was so successful in fact that Aviva has been asked to put the show on at the Artscape again, for a 4-night run in April (16th to 19th). We have also been asked to participate, and look forward to it as the choir will be getting a great opportunity to find out what Show Business is all about! We will again be appearing at The Last Night of the Proms concerts, which are to be held in the Cape Town City Hall under the baton of Richard Cock on 29 and 30 March 2008. We hope that many of you will be able to support this hugely enjoyable function, which is to be staged by the Rotary Club of Wynberg. This will be a major fundraiser for their worthy projects. 20 April 2008 will see us performing at St Paul’s Church in Bree Street, Cape Town in a concert to celebrate the church's 150th anniversary. Our recruiting efforts are beginning to bear fruit – three new basses joined us last month. Please note that our doors will remain open, and new membership applications are always welcomed. We'll report later on about the rest of the year's activities. Suffice it to say that we have some exciting plans, including a possible tour to the Overberg. 19 January 2008: NOW FOR 2008 ... The Cape Town Male Voice Choir will kick off its 2008 programme by participating in Aviva Pelham's 60th birthday celebration. This will be a fund-raising concert entitled Diamond Diva is to be held at the Artscape in Cape Town on Wednesday 23 January 2008. The concert celebrates Aviva's long and stellar career in music, and will feature a number of groups and artistes who have collaborated with her over the years.
Featured acts will be
... and please don't forget us ... The concert will start at 8:15 pm on Wednesday 23 January 2008 at the Artscape in Cape Town, and tickets will be available from Computicket or at the door for R100,00 and R150,00. 21 October 2007: THE CHAIRMAN'S REVIEW Since we last reported, the choir has had a very busy time. We performed at the Baxter Concert Hall with Sarita Stern and her Voices of Hope, and this was followed by an appearance at the opening of the Orchid Show in the Cape Town International Convention Centre. Both of these events provided the Choir with good public exposure and an opportunity to perform in different venues under very different circumstances. We then performed at Plumstead High School in support of a major fund-raising function for Anchors Away, a shelter for disabled persons. This well organised and even better attended event was attended by more than 300 people. Next up was a concert at the Tokai Community Church. This was thoroughly enjoyed by both the choir and an audience of around 300 people, and congratulations are due to Richard Beer (who is a member of both the Choir and the Church) for his very able organisation. Our attention is now fully focussed on our annual Summer Celebration concert in the City Hall on 30 November 2007. This major event will feature Cape Town's Three Sopranos and the South African Navy Band under the baton of Commander Kenny Leibbrandt. Friends of the Choir are earnestly requested to ensure that this concert features in their diaries. Tickets are now available at R75,00 from Anita Petersen at Expo Promotions on 021-424-1801 or 082-891-4834. Her email address is expopro@iafrica.com. This programme will feature a mixture of classical, traditional and popular music, and will include a number of new items in the repertoire. In the lead-up to this concert, we will be performing at St. Paul's church in Rondebosch on the evening of 24 November 2007. We will also once again be singing at the annual Carols by Candlelight in Kirstenbosch Gardens on 13, 14, 15 and 16 December 2007. The choir has embarked on a recruitment drive, and welcomes applications from potential members, with a particular focus on bass voices. Our 2008 programme is also beginning to take shape. Highlights include the annual Last Night at the Proms in the Cape Town City Hall, and a birthday celebration concert at the Artscape with Aviva Pelham on 17 January 2008. See you there! 15 June 2007: THE CHAIRMAN'S MID-YEAR REVIEW The choir enjoyed the annual Last Night of the Proms concert in the City Hall. Two performances were given to a full city hall, and according to Director Richard Cock, the quality of the male voice singing was particularly good. We can take some pride in that! We sang at the Eisteddfodd at Wynberg Boys High School on 2nd June, and were awarded a Higher Diploma, indicating a mark in the high 90’s. Congratulations are due to Musical Director Margie Barlow and to all concerned. The annual mid-year recess will happen between 19 June and 17 July, so we wish all choristers a relaxing break. They will need to return refreshed and invigorated, as we have a full programme of concerts coming up in August, September and October, not to mention our festive concert in the City Hall on 30 November 2007. Forthcoming highlights will be a performance with Sarita Stern at the Baxter Theatre on 5 September, and one with Aviva Pelham at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on 12 September. Booking arrangements for both these events will be more widely publicised shortly. Although membership remains strong, we are always on the lookout for new talent and applications from interested choristers are invited, particularly in the bass line. 14 June 2007: THE CAPE TOWN EISTEDDFOD On 2 June 2007 the Cape Town Male Voice Choir entered the Cape Town Eisteddfod, in the category Senior Choirs: Male Voice. Two songs were required, lasting no more than eight minutes in all. The grade awarded was HIGH DIPLOMA. Here, for the website, is the text of the Adjudicator's Report. La Montanara - Lovely shaping of phrases - you created a beautiful poignant atmosphere. What an excellent last note/chord. Good direction of the line. Ride the chariot - A well balanced programme - what a super second song. Riding the chariot - work at this to achieve more rhythmic vitality. Excellent use of dynamics - full of energy - well done! 19 February 2007: THE LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS We are busy with rehearsals for the two concerts to be given at the end of March, namely the Last Nights of the Proms. These concerts are subtitled The March of Time and they celebrate the centenaries of four composers, two British and two Scandinavian. The British composers are Sir Edward Elgar (who died in 1857) and Eric Coates who died 100 years later. The two other composers are Norwegian Edvard Grieg (he died in 1907), and Jan Sibelius (Finnish) who died in 1957. 9 November 2006: SUMMER CELEBRATION CONCERT The Cape Town Male Voice Choir celebrates its 30th anniversary this year and proudly presents its annual Summer Celebration Concert at the Cape Town City Hall at 19:30 on Saturday, 2 December 2006.
For more details including booking facilities, see here. 8 September 2006: THE CAPE TOWN MALE VOICE CHOIR WEBSITE IS BORN
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| Latest update: 1 August 2010 | © Copyright Cape Town Male Voice Choir SA (CTMVC) 2005–2010 |
restaurant for a well-earned supper, ably organised by Derek. An evening
of fun, laughter and bawdy singing. After the disciplined conduct of the
concert, it was nice to join in an impromptu rendering sung with
unrestrained gusto. A very quiet group of revellers returned to our lofty
bunk room in the early hours of Saturday morning. Having enjoyed the dulcet
tones of Louis snoring on and off for most of the night.
After 30 years of existence, the Cape Town Male Voice
Choir has a website.