Gaborone Youth Singers does it again

Local choir, Gaborone Youth Singers (GYS) led by conductor, Tshephiso Marumo were recently crowned the overall winners of the North West Botswana region in the annual Old Mutual National Choir Festival. 

The provincial competition was held earlier this month at the Rustenburg Civic Centre.  This win will see the local choir competing alongside other provinces in the finals that are scheduled to take place in December in Johannesburg. Local choirs that participated at the competition also included KTM, Andante Choristers, Maikano Serenaders, and the Gaborone Philharmonic Voices. 

Besides the local choirs, there were seven other choirs from the North West region that formed part of the competition. The groups competed in the Standard category and were tasked with transforming two songs namely Western (titled Squiwla-il-bronzo- del- dio) and vernacular pieces (Inqola Emasondosondo). The vernacular piece is a song that celebrates the forty years that the competition has been running.  According to the (GYS) Neo Keitshupang, this is the second consecutive year that the group has bagged the win at the provincial competition. She said they are elated and that the real work starts now as they want to emerge victorious at the finals. 

“Our goal is to take first place at the finals,” she said. She said they intend to compete in the large choir category next year. This category requires competing groups to have 80 choristers.