In an interview with Arts & Culture, one of the organising committee members, Kenneth Ramosala said the aim of hosting the event was to celebrate their milestone with their members and key stakeholders from different sectors of the economy including those who have walked the path with them in their journey. He explained that for the past 10 years, their journey had not been an easy one as there had been challenges, disappointments and failures.
He added that there were also great experiences, success, excitement and most of all, growth along the way.
“The following are just a tip of what Andante Chorus has achieved, winning championships of the annual President’s Day Choral Music Competitions over multiple competitions, placing in top three, in different years, during the Old Mutual National Choir Regional Festival attended by both Botswana and South African choirs and placing top three in multiple competitions including the BOCMA festival, BeMobile Choir festival,” he said.
“Being a leader in the choral music industry in Botswana, the choir enjoys a lot of exposure during corporate events and has led the national anthem and entertainment at high profile events including those hosted by the International organisations like SADC, SACU 6th Heads of States Summit, Commonwealth, Joint Army events just to mention but a few.
The highlight of the choir was on April 1, 2018 when the Andante Chorus was invited to sing at the inauguration of the current President of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi,” he further said.
He added that the Choir had great impact on individual choir members, with one of their bass singers, Gaolefufa Kombani having snatched the first prize at some classical soloists’ competition at Maitisong, walking away with a P50,000 scholarship to study music in South Africa. Ramosala said that was one of the ways the choir supports and assists in the youth empowerment schemes of finding meaningful employment through their vocations. Further, he stated that other choir members were often called for paid invitations to grace people’s events, which gets them focused on community building and away from social ills that would otherwise be gripping their time.
He said in line with the Botswana’s Vision 2036 Pillar of “Human and Social Development”, the Andante Chorus continues to explore ways to transform its members and develop communities within which they exist.
However, he pointed out that as Andante Chorus they believe that the biggest transformation they had was making music together. He said the real impact of choral singing was that they delve into the soul of each singer, feeling connected to one another and build the community. He explained that choral art maybe one of the last social platforms where people could still come together, put aside their differences that so much of society use to create barriers to divide people. “We seek to build bridges to bring people together into community and this has been our greatest achievement over the past 10 years.
The journey has been with great challenges including sustaining the choir especially with transport and general sustenance of the choir as most of our members are not working or are college/university students,” he said.
“The choir has stood stead and managed to exist even beyond the fierce challenges of unemployment affecting the youth, lack of sponsorship, lack of rehearsal spaces and generally the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has torn a lot of societies and organisations apart. Andante Chorus survives mostly by payouts from our performances and donations from members,” he added.
However, they are grateful for the support of the government as it continues to play a huge role in supporting and developing choral music in the country. With the recent birth of the Botswana Arts Council, which is one of the great initiatives by the government, they believe that they will work together with the government and other stakeholders to implement strategies for choral music to contribute to the economic development of the country.
Just like other creative and businesses, he said the choir was not spared as with many other indoor gatherings which were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. He said many of their members found it hard to cope with the wait, lock-down restrictions and the general social life challenges and resorted to other available outdoor activities where COVID-19 protocols were lifted much earlier.
Tickets for the Gala Dinner are sold at several places and other packages have been designed conveniently for our audience as follows; P350 double ticket, P500 VIP and P1,000 Corporate (table of four).
