MELODIES
Traditional

NONKONYANE KANDABA
Wathint’ abangasokufa, Wathinta thina

UMANDELA Welcome Duru

BAWO XANDILAHLEKAYO
Traditional

JUDGEMENT DAY
Sipho Gumede

LITSHONILE LILANGA
Traditional

PASOPA VERWOERD
Vuyisile Mini

JOH LEFIFI
Traditional

SECHABA Mbongeni, Hugh Masekela & Stanley Myers\

UMHLABA WONKE
Traditional

MBAYI MBAYI
R. Khemose, S. Khemose, C. Khemose, M. Muguni, O. Beggs

JIKIJELA
Traditional

INTERMISSION

OPENING DANCE AND CHANT
Traditional

AMEN Curtis Mayfield, Johnny Pate

A CHANGE IS GONNA COME
Sam Cooke

HEAVEN HELP US ALL
Ronald Miller

I’LL TAKE YOU THERE
Alvertis Isbell

RESPECT
Ottis Redding

THE LIVING YEARS
Mike Rutherford and B.A. Robertson

WHATS GOING ON
Marvin Gaye, Renaldo Benson, Al Cleveland

STAND UP
Joshuah Campbell, Cyntha Echumuna-Erivo

STAND BY ME
Ben E. King, Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller

Program is subject to change.

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This performance will run approximately 110 minutes, including a 20-minute intermission.

Hailing from Soweto (South West Township), a town outside of Johannesburg and home of Nelson Mandela and South Africa’s democratic movement, Soweto Gospel Choir continues to inspire audiences around the world with their powerful blend of African gospel, freedom songs and international classics.

Comprising a lineup of some of South Africa’s best vocalists, these uplifting performers have shared the stage and collaborated with the biggest names in contemporary music including Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Beyonce, U2, Diana Ross, Peter Gabriel, Chris Martin, John Legend, Pharrell Williams, Jimmy Cliff, Ben Harper, Angelique Kidjo, Robert Plant, Celine Dion, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Hugh Masekela and Josh Groban.

Soweto Gospel Choir was formed in 2003 at the end of the apartheid era and during South Africa’s inspiring return to democracy. Taking part in some of the major historical events in the new democratic South Africa, Soweto Gospel Choir are proud to have performed on many occasions for the father of their nation, former President Nelson Mandela, and sadly at his state funeral in South Africa and at the subsequent commemorative service at Westminster Abbey in London. They were similarly invited to perform at the funeral service for the late President’s first wife, Winnie Mandela. The Choir’s patron is human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and they are proud to act as ambassadors for the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

“HOPE—it’s Been a Long Time Coming” offers as a heartfelt message of hope to all people. It combines South African struggle songs sung by communities fighting the oppressive apartheid regime and the songs of America’s Civil Rights Movement. These are the songs of a people all praying for a better life. They are songs of resistance. They come from the soul. Theirs is a heartfelt message of both resilience and of hope. We trust that this powerful music will not only reach you and cheer you but will give you inspiration that we can rise above all ills, that we can climb the mountain and emerge from the darkest valleys and into the sun, victorious.

—Soweto Gospel Choir, 2022

 

"God has wrought many things out of oppression. He has endowed his creatures with the capacity to create - and from this capacity has flowed the sweet songs of sorrow and joy that have allowed man to cope with his environment and many different situations."

—Martin Luther King
1964 Berlin Jazz Festival (Article)

 

“… the political use of music in South Africa changed from being a ‘mirror’ in the 1940s and 1950s to becoming a ‘hammer’ with which to shape reality in the 1980s. In South Africa, music went from reflecting common experiences and concerns in the early years of apartheid, to eventually function as a force to confront the State and as a means to actively construct an alternative political and social reality.”

—Anne Schumann
The beat that beat apartheid: the role of music in the resistance against apartheid in South Africa.
2008 Vienna Journal of African Studies (Article)