An extravaganza of music and comedy, as well as the usual craft and food stalls, will feature at this year’s Christmas in the Berg festival at the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir School in Champagne Valley, some two-and-a-bit hours drive from Durban.
The event is planned for this Friday to Sunday and among the highlights will be three concerts by The Drakensberg Boys’ Choir, including a performance of the choir’s best music this year and a combined concert, titled Jabulani Afrika!, in which the boys will team with the acclaimed Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
The third performance by the choir will be a traditional Christmas concert.
The Drakensberg Boys’ Choir is celebrating its 45th year as Africa’s only specialist choir school – internationally acclaimed.
The singers recently returned from a tour of America, performing in eight cities, including sharing a stage with the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City.
Also on the weekend festival bill is Ben Voss’s award-winning Bend It Like Beauty, in which he makes merry in his guise as amusing black businesswoman and ambassador Beauty Ramapelepele.
Popular group Navi Redd will also be performing and there will be a special non-denominational church service with noted evangelist Angus Buchan as guest speaker.
In addition to the entertainment, the festival will also feature a beer tent and restaurant with a German-style theme, and, if current negotiations prove fruitful, also an oompah band.
The festival will open at 2pm on Friday with the choir’s 90-minute talent showcase, after which a 45-minute puppet show will be presented at 4pm. Titled Storysomebrero, it will have entertainer Wiebke Holm capturing children’s imaginations with a tale involving an umbrella and puppets.
Saturday’s programme opens at 9.30am with the choir performing a range of works including the opening chorus of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, the Toreador song from Bizet’s Carmen, folks songs and South African favourites.
At noon on Saturday Storysombrero will be staged again. This is also when Voss’s Bend it Like Beauty will be performed.
The choir teams with Ladysmith Black Mambazo at 2.30pm on Saturday, after which all-male group Navi Redd, formed in 2004, will perform a wide of range of songs.
The choir’s Christmas concert will then be presented at 7pm on Saturday and again at 12.30pm on Sunday.
Sunday’s programme opens with a 9am church service then, at 10.30am, pipe-organist Ockie Vermeulen will perform with a four-piece band and the Zeus Ladies Vocal Ensemble.
For more information call 036 468 1012. - The Mercury