The Music
Conductors of the Drakensberg Boys Choir have included:
- Botes Gresse.
- Christian Ashley-Botha - retired from the DBCS in 2006 after 26 years of loyal service.
- Rudolf de Beer - left in 2006 to take up a post at the University of Stellebosch.
- Bernard Kruger - left at the end of 2009 to take up the position of Choirmaster at Kearnsey College.
As of 2009 the choir is conducted by the school's director of music, Johann van der Sandt.
The choir attempts to reflect the multi-faceted cultures that make up South Africa. It has created a new trend in the international choral scene that transcends the conventional. This includes a recent addition of more modern art music. The choir is internationally acclaimed for its unique African repertoire, containing various traditional works like "Shosholoza", and "Night Sounds" where the choir imitates the sounds of the African Bush. They also perform a Gumboot Dance, which originated in the South African mines. Using authentic African instruments and body percussion as accompaniment, the choir performs traditional African works as have never been experienced before.
Read more about this topic: Drakensberg Boys' Choir School
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air; thence have I followed it,
Or it hath drawn me rather.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)