11 Aug 2015

The Roman Catholic Church is at core of the growth of the choral music. Renowned musician and music producer, Reggie Kopi, said this on Saturday August 8 in an interview on the sidelines of the Gaborone Diocese Catholic Church Music festival at St Joseph’s College in Kgale.

He said year after year, the church had being hosting several music competitions, which supported choral music growth.

Consequently, it was not surprising that most of the church choirs were more appealing than some of the community choirs.

“The most part of music development rests on the Roman Catholic Church,” said the renowned host of Melodi ya Dinnoto television programme.

He said the church had devoted time to develop music and in the process producing some of the renowned song writers and producers.

Spiritual director for the church choirs, Father Jeremiah Mkhwanazi, said the music festival was an annual event in which choirs’ battled for a slot at the annual Inter-diocesan Music Festival billed for Pretoria.

Furthermore, Father Mkwanazi said the festival also assisted choir members to grow in the music ministry as well as promoting catholic music.

He said the preliminary music festival also afforded a rare opportunity to song writers to showcase their talent by composing songs.

Father Mkwanazi said in a year, the church had two different music festivals for different pieces of music that promoted catholic music and nurture talent.

In addition, he conceded that the church music festivities were improving the music standards in the country and groomed talent, while the chairperson of the Association of Gaborone Diocese Catholic Choirs, Thabo Mohamadi, said the standard of the competition had risen over the years.

He said about 25 choirs took part in the whole day event under different categories and added that the competition started around 1990’s.

Meanwhile, St Bernadette from Gaborone West was crowed winners in the large secretion category followed by St Conrads from Ramotswa, while the standard section category was won by St Bernards from Taung followed by Sacred Heats from Kopong.

Both choirs booked their tickets to the Inter-diocesan Music Festival which will be held in December. ENDS