Concert a good news story
THE exciting Last Night of the Proms fundraiser concert in the Feather Market Centre was one of the most memorable for concert goers and supporters of St Francis Hospice, Nelson Mandela Bay. It celebrated youth, music and also the philanthropic spirit which clearly permeates this city of ours.
There are too few good news stories in our newspapers these days, but this is one.
Port Elizabeth-born Richard Cock was his usual genial and brilliant self, holding audience and performers enthralled as he and the Eastern Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, joined by five school choirs, the Savoy Singers and the Transnet Port Terminals Choir, brought an exciting "Music from the Movies" programme to an audience. It begged for more, when the traditional Land of Hope and Glory ended the evening.
The magnificent Feather Market organ played its essential, integral part, as did the Caledonian Pipe Band, when it joined the orchestra and choirs in Hector the Hero, theme from the Scottish musical.
Star soloist Samson Diamond received thunderous applause from the audience, playing on his 1803 Wagner violin. This young man began his career in Soweto, is currently concertmaster of the Free State Symphony Orchestra and has recently appeared as soloist at the RMB Starlight Classics with the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra and the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Cock.
Equally impressive was baritone Siyabulela Ntlale, who was born in Port Elizabeth in August 1985. Siyabulela already has an impressive career in opera, having studied at Cape Town Opera Voices of the Nation Ensemble.
Last year, he became the first recipient of the Gobbato-Qavane Operatic Award for outstanding performance in advanced studies.
The performance of one of the young stars of the Zip-Zap circus, high above the audience, as she soared aloft on two lengths of cloth secured to the domed roof, had most gasping. This group has outreach programmes across the country and has toured abroad, also performing in 1995 for then president Nelson Mandela on his 77th birthday.
It was an evening which made one proud to be a South African, and a resident of the Nelson Mandela metro, as our magnificent, talented orchestra literally "pulled out all the stops" to give us an inspiring, wonderful evening to remember. We applaud them, and all those many backstage men and women, boys and girls.
Bernice Wright, Port Elizabeth
