A mass setting by Haydn mixed with freedom songs from South Africa – so the “Long March to freedom sounds”. A special project in Eberbach – at the Rheingau music Festival, which runs until the end of August.
Quiet passages from the Song “Ukuthula” unfold your gentle charm in the whole length of the Basilica of Eberbach monastery. Then the “Gloria” from Haydn-Messe los thunders sound like a tsunami, breaking over the massive stone walls.
The composition, from the year 1798 with the subtitle “Nelson-Messe” has to do, historically, with Nelson Mandela nothing: The Name refers to a hero of the Napoleonic wars, an English Admiral by the name of Horatio Lord Nelson. A fair performance break through pieces, which were composed two centuries later, acts only on the first glance, strange. The program, which was designed exclusively for the Rheingau music Festival, filled the festival’s motto, “Courage” in a unique way.
Music education in the Townships
With the title, “Long walk to freedom” music of the chamber choir graced Vocale Neuburg with the Bochabela String Orchestra from South Africa. For its founder and Director, Peter Guy, the appearance in the Eberbach monastery was on 7. July “is probably the highlight in the history of the string orchestra”.
For him, the circle was completed: 35 years Ago, the after was a double bass player from the U.S. state of Montana a music career in Germany – more precisely: near Eberbach, in the city of Wiesbaden marriage, he went to South Africa. He played in various orchestras and gave music lessons. Soon after the end of the Apartheid regime in the 1990s, the Guy was looking for ways to give children in the impoverished Townships of access to music education.
Satisfied with the result: Peter Guy
“Bochabela” was the name of the elementary school, in the Peter Guy of his Initiative, began in 1997 alone, first with 18 children. The “Manguang String programme”, which allows for today more than 700 students music lessons was.
“Fittingly means ‘Participants’ is translated as: ‘The place where the sun rises’,” says Guy. “Our current teachers are role models for the children. They join in the System and can speak three or four languages that you need, if it is within a radius of 100 kilometres in the Townships on the way.”
Success stories and dreams
In 22 years, the program has produced success stories: After his master’s degree in South Africa, has enrolled a musician at the famous Juilliard School in New York. Other professional musicians in South African orchestras.
Chamber choir “Vocale Neuberg” and the “Bochabela String Orchestra & Friends” at the trial in the Eberbach monastery
The part by donations and sponsorship-funded organization must reach out to the children outside of school time. A boarding school, so Guy, “remains one of my big dreams.”
The classical music in South Africa is a growth business? “Certainly”, replies the Guy. “In all the terrible history of Apartheid, the government said to the people: ‘If you’re white, you can play Cricket, if you’re black, football.’ Classical music was for White, Jazz Black. Now, more and more young people want to play classical instruments and are not limited to a particular style or a particular Genre.”
You dance with me
The children are trained only once in larger groups, without the note read. After that, the teaching is done in smaller groups or as individual lessons. The non-academic approach was reflected in the body language of the musicians during their game in the Eberbach monastery again: arms, heads, body rockers, with dancing to the rhythm.
This was contagious: Soon after did the other participating musicians, the listeners in the pews bobbed their heads to the Beat of the African songs. In the case of the national anthem “Nkosi Sikelel’ I Afrika” (Lord bless Africa), to the audience, and several encores, a woman from the audience danced.
The concert began with a long March of the musicians, quietly singing, through the Basilica
In the song “Weeping” (crying) that was switched to before the end of the Haydn-Messe in between, it is said, “The threat is under control as Long as peace and order reign. / I’ll be damned if I can find a reason / Why the fear and the fire and the guns remain.”
This is the message that fit the theme of this year’s Rheingau music festival: “Courage”. It could also be used as a metaphor for the life’s work of freedom fighter and later South African President Nelson Mandela understood.
And you seemed like a mood recording in a country where formidable problems remain, but an arduous struggle for freedom, the hope is gone. With the appropriate enthusiasm in the Form of music taught, this is an optimistic message, which is used everywhere and comes in.