Ministers of the cloth will be forgiven for breaking the Eleventh Commandment – thou shall not covet thy neighbour’s congregation – as they see the crowds snaking round from St George’s and heading for Queensferry Street. But they’d be better sharing in the Soweto Gospel Choir’s spiritual warmth than wringing their hands because an hour in this vibrant musical kaleidoscope’s company is a fillip to the soul whatever your beliefs.
To the keening sound of one voice’s call to prayer and accompanying djembe drummer’s pulse, the choir emerges and proceeds to sing, dance and drum its message of optimism. This from a country which, to say the least, hasn’t had and continues not to have its troubles to seek can be tremendously humbling. The unquestionable joy and conviction of each chorister, though, whether in taking turns at solo, duo and quartet songs, displaying energetic physical rituals or forming the swaying, richly chordal choral backdrop, concentrates the mind on the onstage activity.
Traditional Zulu, Xhosa, and Sotho gospel songs and charming vignettes such as a marriage proposal sung to big-eyed coquettishness mingle with modern African hip hop arrangements and American imports, including a perhaps inevitable Amazing Grace, Jimmy Cliff’s Many Rivers to Cross, and Otis Redding’s Amen in a virtually non-stop pageant. The use of a backing track breaks the live-in-the-room voice and percussion spell slightly, but this is only a brief blip in a concert that dares you not to return the participant’s smiles
