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Frances Lund
A Durban academic noted for socio-economic research flew to New York this week to take up an artistic challenge – she is to join the San Francisco Orchestra Choir in a performance of Mozart’s Requiem at the Lincoln Centre on Sunday.
It’s something of a dream come true for Frances Lund, who is better known as a sociologist and social worker, who practised as a grassroots organiser in the fields of early childhood development, and in urban infrastructure, and is now involved in Wiego – Women in Informal Employment: Globalising and Organising.
Lund is long noted for her research into the impact of SA’s pensions and grants in mitigating poverty and redressing inequality. She chaired the Lund committee on child and family support in 1995, which led to the introduction of the child support grant.
Her singing prowess is perhaps less known, however, in spite of her long having been a member of Durban vocal quintet How Low Can You Go.
So how did Lund land an invitation to sing in America under the choral baton of Vance George, the former Emmy award-winning director of the San Francisco Chorus? It was thanks to a friend of a friend, she told another friend, Durban’s Loretta van Schalwyk, shortly before jetting off to the US at the weekend.
Lund wrote to Van Schalkwyk that Wiego’s international co-ordinator, Marty Chen, a friend and US citizen, had been invited by her friend, George, to sing with the San Francisco Choir.
“He wrote to Marty, asking if she would like to join his choir for the occasion. Marty wrote back and said she would love to, and could two of her friends, Suzanne Charity and Francie Lund, come as well. And he said yes!
“I was so enthralled, I could not speak of it for days,” Lund told Van Shalkwyk.
She added: “Now, a puzzle: If you are not part of a big choir, how do you learn your own part?”
Lund visited Google, typed “Mozart alto score Lacrymosa”, and up came the music for that piece.
“It plays the whole score in the background, but amplifies the alto part, so that you can hear and learn your own piece. Totally brilliant.”
So it was that Lund was able to rehearse fully for what marks the biggest event of her days as a singer. – The Mercury
