340 children between the ages of 6 and 11 and 340 TEDDY BEARS sharing the same stage sounds like “The Teddy bears’ Picnic”!
The 3rd annual Bamba Festival, a choir festival for junior school choirs, will be held at Summerwood Primary School on Saturday 2 June.
Hanlie Young, the extremely capable conductor of the ECjCC may find her position usurped by the choir’s official teddy bear, Bamba (isiXhosa word meaning to cuddle or to hug). Every year Bamba orders everyone around in order to invite 5 schools’ junior choirs to the Bamba Festival. The main message conveyed to the junior choirs, is that every chorister should bring his/her teddy bear along for the mass item at the end of the day, namely “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic”. The Bamba Festival concert culminates in this song sung by 340 choristers with, of course, their 340 teddy bears singing along on stage.
The 2012 Bamba Festival mass item will be conducted by the ECjCC’s artistic director, Lionel van Zyl. The Bamba Festival Concert starts at 15h30 on Saturday 2 June. Entry: Adults: R25; Children/pensioners: R10.
The goal of the annual Bamba Festival is to create an opportunity for junior school choirs to perform. Due to their young age and short duration of their programmes, they are not often invited to perform outside their own schools. By combining a huge portion of fun with serious choir singing, the ECjCC is promoting choir singing and nurturing the love for singing of these very young children.
The Eastern Cape Junior Children’s Choir will be joined by these schools; Clarendon Primary, Sydenham Primary, Despatch Primary, St Dominic’s Priory Junior and Mount Pleasant Primary. These schools will perform individually at the Bamba Festival Concert, followed by the ECjCC’s performance and finally culminating in the mass item with all 6 choirs sharing the stage right at the end of the concert.
The six choirs will take turns before the concert to rehearse on stage. During the waiting periods, choristers will be occupied by making a “jumping teddy bear” from board, split pins and a piece of string. This activity is sponsored by the ECjCC. Choristers will also have an opportunity to buy hamburgers or boerewors rolls, freshly made candy floss or to browse the merchandise of the Bamba Souvenir Shop.
Excited choristers of the 6 choirs have already started colouring-in two different pictures of Bamba for the colouring-in competition that forms part of the Bamba Festival. There are three prizes for each choir to be won in this competition totalling 18 prizes for all the choirs.
A new feature this year is a teddy raffle. By counting the (correct!) number of teddies in a picture overcrowded with teddies, a chorister stands a chance to win a HUGE teddy bear.
As usual, choristers are invited to enter their teddies, brought for the mass item, for the teddy bear competition. Choristers must indicate why his/her teddy is special. Again there will be prizes for each choir.
Profiles Fitness (in William Moffat) is kindly sponsoring three prizes for another raffle. Adults stand a chance to win a month’s membership at the Gym, or a couple’s massage. The prize most children are hoping to win, is the children’s pool party! Raffle tickets are available from ECjCC choristers or at the Profiles Fitness Health Club.
Junior school choirs that would like to participate in the 2013 Bamba Festival, are welcome to contact the choir or Susan Coetzer at 082 781 2428.
Other performances of the ECjCC this year will include the concert on 21 June at the Victory Christian Church in Jeffreys Bay, the annual Prestige concert with the Eastern Cape Youth Choir and the South Cape Children’s Choir (based in George and the guests of the ECjCC) on 14 September in the DRC Summerstrand, the Music Extravaganza on 18 September in Uitenhage and several performances at churches and retirement villages.
