Actually, all this is irrelevant because the stage is one of the key indicators of civilisation and, anyway, there are some others, including the American International School, which is half way between Lusaka and somewhere else, a large hall at another less international school, and another huge hall in the government complex. All this adds up to the idea that I may also have to build a stage, on the veranda… those who know me, know that I have been here before.
While Zambia is not there with useable performance space, Zambians do extreme choirs, they sing beautifully but few can read music. There are two choirs where the members can read music, and one choir of ten members who can read well. Vox Zambezi was established by Paul Kelly and one other who absconded to Botswana and is associated with Ngoma Dolce Music Academy, which was set up to promote the professionalisation of music, although they had to think about that for a while.
Despite prima donnas everywhere, there are pragmatic, no nonsense, individuals who are just getting on with it, which is how I came to hear Chongwe, Chongwe – the first song after the overture - being rehearsed and an announcement, to me, by the, shall we say, choir leader, who should be the music director – wish she would be - who had found a tenor and a bass as well as the two sopranos and a contralto, all of whom could read music. I was so delighted that I whizzed around to see the choreographer and got him wound up, and I later received a phone call from a friend who, as it happens, driving in from Mumbwa, would make a very suitable production manager - well, let us say, he has the knowledge and capacity to be a production manager. I am not sure he knows how big this job is!
No names yet, sorry, but there will be names, photographs and press releases soon.
So I am now seriously under pressure to produce singers’ parts with piano accompaniment. You can look forward to Youtubes and recordings on this site soon. Further, we will be doing reviews of the material – set and costume designs and songs and dance as they become available, probably at Alliance Français, so that you can comment on it and tell me that you also wrote an opera once but you decided it would not work. I’m 60, and I have heard all that before, but I look forward to seeing you there anyway.
