A big voice comes home

This week gives South Africans a chance to hear a local soprano who is making waves on the music scene in the United States.

The University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra is on its first concert tour of South Africa, and joining them is acclaimed bass-baritone Daniel A. Washington, 2025 Grammy award-winner soprano, Karen Slack and our own Goitsemang Lehobye, who grew up outside Pretoria.

Under the baton of music director and conductor Kenneth Kiesler, the show is peppered with items from some of America’s greatest composers including Gershwin, Bernstein, Bonds, Dawson and Davis, to pieces from South African composers Sidumo Nyamezele and John Knox Bokwe.

The Independent on Saturday spoke to an excited Lehobye at her home in Ann Arbor. Michigan, this week.

Lehobye is keen to come home and see her family. “It’s so nice singing for my people - so nice to sing at home where people can scream and ululate and all of that. If my grandmother was here she would lead it. But I’m also bringing my alma mater with me and my teacher who’s been my rock every time and has helped Michigan to become home too. 

She tells me of her musical journey growing up in Ga-Rankuwe.

“I come from a very musical family. My uncle sang in a community choir and sometimes after preschool would go to rehearsals with him - and listen. That’s where I started to love music. At home I would sing the songs and they’d wonder how I picked it up.

“At about three four, at primary school I joined the choir. I thought this was great. Sadly in middle school there was no choir but I joined again at high school and was introduced to opera, and choir competitions.

“One of my teachers told me ‘you have a loud voice. you must come sing the solos.” she says.

Then her imagination was sparked by seeing the Black Tie opera company at State Theatre. “Oh my god, so cool. They were singing but also acting and all dramatic. My teacher said I could get to be those people. When I finished High school I won the school competition and an invite to audition for the Black Tie Ensemble and got an incubator spot with them and started to learn about music and opera.”

And then she was spotted. Prof Kamal Khan from UCT attended a concert in Pretoria. “Afterward he asked about my qualifications and what I was doing in SA with this voice. I didn’t have any formal training and he persuaded me to come to University of Cape Town. I grabbed the opportunity with both hands and completed a diploma in opera.”

And there she met  Washington who invited her to come to Michigan to complete her masters.

Then just as she was looking forward to stepping out onto the world stage, Covid came. “Everything stopped so I decided to stay here and study further and did my doctorate. I graduated last year.

In her dissertation she studied and performed an “interesting” set of songs by Joshua Mthembu, also creating resources for non Zulu speaking people to pick up the songs and sing them. “Teaching the clicks and all that jazz,” she laughs.

She’s also thrilled to be bringing home one of her heroes in Karen Slack. “When I heard I was sharing a stage with her I thought  oh my god meet this person I’ve been looking up to. It’s great to think of sharing her with my home in my world.”

Lehoybye will sing George Gershwin’s Summertime along with Plea for Africa with Washington and Slack. “It’s a song that I knew everyone in the choral would know. One of those songs sung especially back in the days when times were tough. I heard Sibongile Khumalo sing it. The words are amazing to me. It’s very powerful and very low for a mezzo soprano.” she says.

When she’s not performing she likes to go out with my friends and trying different cuisines. Musically she likes “anything under the sun” but loves to listen to SA  gospel music. “It centres me, and  calms me,” she says. 

The tour starts with a concert on May 21 at 7pm in the Aula, University of Pretoria, then on May 23 at 7pm at the Regina Mundi Church, Soweto and May 24 at 4pm at the Linder Auditorium, Johannesburg. Two Cape Town concerts are on May 26 at 7pm at the Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre, Parow and May 28 at 7.30pm at the Cape Town City Hall.