The Faculty of Education took the Pretoria Children’s Choir under its wing for 8 years. The choir drew gifted children from many Pretoria Schools. Auditions were quite challenging and prospective singers had to obtain 75% in an aural test in which the distance between two consecutive tones was electronically divided into 16 parts.

During Tinus Kühn’s 21 years as conductor the choir had many highlights; it took part for Pact in the operas Turandot and Tosca  as well as in a number of ballet productions, including Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Other memorable occasions were taking part in productions of The Singing Christmas Tree, numerous concerts with Mimi Coertse in Christmas with Mimi, tours abroad in which they shared a concert with the world famous Bambini di Praga, and many productions for SABC TV that include the opera Schwarzer Peter.

 National tours made it possible for the choir to travel South Africa. Concerts with the Tygerberg Children’s Choir in Cape Town and the Bloemfontein Children’s Choir were some of the memorable ones. A Namibian tour from Katimo Mulilo in the north to the south of the country was a special experience.

The reunion held on 18 and 19 February this year proved that the members share a common denominator: they are Friends forever. During the Saturday evening concert 65 singers performed 9 compositions very agreeably and the prided themselves on achieving this after one day of rehearsal. The soloists, Marena Lotriet [soprano], Stephan Gericke [piano] and Daniel de Wet [piano] are ex-choir members.

A representative and stunning exhibition of the choir’s documentation of 21 years ¯ including photographs,    press reviews, choir outfits, CDs and letters from composers that the choir had worked with ¯ was presented in the foyer of the Auditorium by Dr Pieter du Toit of the Faculty of Education.

To view photos of the reunion click here