Choral Class

A choral class is offered on the ship, so I decided to take it to learn more about choral music performance and have a greater appreciation of the singers' and director's jobs. I really did not plan on singing, but I am. And tonight, after deciding on Sunday afternoon to do this, we sang the South African National Anthem at the beginning of the Pre-port lecture. Desmond Tutu and his wife, Leah, spoke to us earlier about the origin of the anthem, the reason for the four languages used in it and what is being said. Mainly, God bless our beautiful country. The two African languages were very challenging. Africaan is much like German. The English part was the easiest, naturally. The South African College student aboard for the week helped us with the pronunciation and recorded it so we all had it on our computers for practice. We also practiced many times out of class. Paul said it sounded great and our choral teacher was proud of our performance. Those hours of extra practice paid off! And only 3 classes! But how exciting to sing the anthem as we approached South Africa and with Archbishop Tutu! He is just marvelous and wonderfully approachable. He danced with the kids some South African dance they broke into after we sang the anthem for the second time at the end of the lecture! We were recorded too, but I don't know why.

We are preparing for a concert Dec 1.  It will be really hard for some of us, but we'll accomplish it.  We're determined and the professor is great!