|
The Institute for Arts Management and Development, Artéma, of the North-West University’s Potchefstroom Campus has just presented a workshop for choir leaders, choir organisers and choirmasters in collaboration with the Arts Centre of the University of Johannesburg.
The workshop was led by Jonathan Griffith, co-founder and artistic director of Distinguished Concerts International in New York. He himself is an active choirmaster, trainer, lecturer and consultant.
|
|
|
At the back are Messrs Peet Ryke, Horst Bütow and Glenn Cunniff from Pukkunste. In front are Ms. Starr Veldsman of the National Choir Academy, Jonathan Griffith from New York and Michael Dingaan, a Puk alumnus that attended the workshop.
|
Approximately forty choir enthusiasts from the greater Potchefstroom area and even as far as Kimberley, Johannesburg and Pretoria, attended the workshop.
Griffith’s experience on his tally-stick includes the Mormons Tabernacle Choir, the Manhattan Philharmonic Orchestra and the New England Symphonic Ensemble. He served as choir master for the Utah and Portland Opera Societies, was founder of the Kansas City Chorale and the Jonathan Griffith Singers, and was a member of the Faculties of the Music Conservatories at the universities of Missouri-Kansas City, Wichita State University, Marylhurst University and Warner Pacific College.
Mr. Chris de Bruyn of Artéma says the aim of the workshop was to assist choir leaders, choir organisers and choir masters in making their existing choirs more sustainable and managing it more successfully. “New strategies regarding how to improve current methods of extending a choir, orchestra or ensemble’s membership, of developing audiences and broadening funding were touched on.”
|
