Kampala Music School

Kampala Music School is an amazing place, the center for classical music in Uganda.  KMS has a choir, Kampala Singers, and also a Symphony Orchestra, and I will be joining them next Sunday June 17 2012 to perform in a concert in honor of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee at the Sheraton hotel in Kampala.  The African Children's Choir will join us and the programme will include Zadok the Priest, Mozart's Coronation Mass, "Sing", the new song written in honor of the Jubilee, "Jupiter" from the Planets, Pomp & Circumstance No. 1 (Land of Hope and Glory) and Jerusalem.
http://kampalamusicschool.com/events/upcoming-events/

The concert went very well with a large and enthusiastic audience - here we are in our final rehearsal on Sunday afternoon in the Sheraton.

Despite a few mishaps along the way (the Music School Director was involved in a traffic accident with a bus on his way to pick up the 100 packed lunches, which arrived an hour late, and there was a five hour power outage at the print shop where the programmes were to have been made, so they never materialized) the rehearsal and performance went splendidly.  My colleagues didn't seem nervous or stressed and everything went off without a hitch.  Maybe Western musicians could learn a thing or two from our relaxed Ugandan friends!

The music school owns four cellos, which are stored centrally to maximize access for all, and are transported to rehearsals.  It's a luxury for me not to have to schlep an instrument with me but just turn up, grab one and play.  The two I've used both need bridge adjustments - I may volunteer to try to do them now the concert is over.  They are also a bit battered from being transported round Kampala strapped to the back of a truck together with a pile of plastic chairs, music stands, a double bass and other miscellaneous musical equipment.  This one had a really short (half size?) bow so was great for practising bow control and playing near the bridge for those long notes!  The school is short of strings - especially violin E and A strings which break most often, so I'll be rounding up lightly used strings from all my friends back home to send here.

We started a little late but the warm-up act, a youth brass band (the trombonists doubled as the orchestra trombone section) kept the capacity crowd well-entertained, with a troupe of young acrobats, one of whom balanced a tennis ball and two beer bottles on the handle of a wooden spoon held in his mouth, and other built human pyramids with the littlest boy, who can only have been five or six years old, hoisted up almost to the ceiling.  The audience was delighted - I was a bit worried that this would be a hard act for the orchestra to follow.

The stars of the show were the Kampala singers - they gave the best performance of Zadok the Priest that I have ever heard.  The Mozart Mass was beautifully done too.

The African Children's Choir were great also.  They have just returned from London where they sang at the Queen's Jubilee Concert.  You can read more about them here African Children's Choir.  In the concert they performed two songs - one by the smaller children in black T-shirts with drums and clapping accompaniment, and another song  about uniting Africa by the older children in the green T-shirts, with two soloists, chorus and dancing.  The Kampala Singers filed back on stage and we all performed Gary Barlow's new Jubilee song, "Sing", with an orchestral accompaniment arranged by Joseph, principal flutist in the orchestra since parts were not available online.  The audience waved their Union Jacks (British flags) and the choir swayed and it was all very moving.

We finished with some audience participation in singing "Jerusalem" and "Land of Hope and Glory" with more flag waving and bobbing (Brits will know what I mean from Last Night of the Proms).  We were just about to launch into Pomp & Circumstance No. 1 when a little baby in the audience started chortling. Conductor Fred Kiggundu lifted his baton a second time and the baby chortled again.  The whole orchestra and audience collapsed laughing, and on the third attempt, we launched successfully into the piece.

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On June 14th we held a dress rehearsal at the Sheraton - the space they gave us was outside on the patio, so as it got dark some of the orchestra clipped flashlights to their heads to be able to read the music.  The massed choirs stood close around us and swayed as they sang the new Gary Barlow / Andrew Lloyd Webber Jubilee song "Sing" - it was quite moving.  I understand that the concert on Sunday will be televised.  We arrive at 12:30 for lunch, then will rehearse from 2-4 and the concert starts at 5pm, in one of the ballrooms.  Our "uniforms" will be all black, and the men will be given red, white and blue ties to wear, and the ladies have been asked to wear a red or blue decoration - I'm planning to wear a red flower on my blouse.

On June 7 we had our first combined choir and orchestral rehearsal in KMS's new home, a refurbished house very close to my apartment.  Ugandans are not very good at being on time - whether because of traffic or because of their jobs I'm not sure - but conductor Fred Kiggundu seems to have infinite patience.  When I arrived at the rehearsal at about 5:50, I found a completely empty room, save the piano, which was being used that week for Associated Board exams (the examiners fly in from the UK for a couple of weeks once a year to examine around 200 students). People started to trickle in.  After half an hour a truck arrived laden with plastic chairs, music stands, cellos, a bass and timpani.  The choir warmed up while the orchestra set up, and we were finally ready to play at 6:50.

The Kampala Singers are outstanding, world class, the orchestra amazing when you realize that this is the only, and therefore the best orchestra in Uganda, and these are the best cellists in Uganda: it's quite humbling.

The second singer from the right in the front row is Angelina, who works in the Communications department at IDI.  Two along from her is Harriet, who sits on the KMS Board and is heading the New Building Committee.

 We couldn't all quite fit into the rehearsal space, which was a converted garage, so the tenors were sitting outside. There was quite a commotion when it started to rain and the choir had to squeeze even closer together so that the tenors could get in out of the rain.

Here are some pictures from my first rehearsal on Monday June 4, at the YMCA in Wandegeya, which was even more of a squash.

 Here is the cello section - from left to right, Michael, Duncan and Solomon.  There will be five of us in total at the concert, plus Dennis on bass.

I am using a KMS cello at rehearsals and hope to be able to rent the instrument after the concert when rehearsals are less frequent, so that I don't have to leave it at the school and can play some chamber music and practise in the apartment.

The school is resource-limited as you can imagine; Fred's wife Sam played percussion with great aplomb on a small heart shaped toy tambourine; timpani have been borrowed from a local school that does not have its own orchestra and never uses them, and the hunt is on for cymbals for Pomp and Circumstance No. 1.  Much use is made of the www.imslp.org website for music, and Fred and others also arrange and hand write parts if none are available.

More money is urgently needed to pay for the move to the new building, and KMS is looking for donations of $9,000 for each practice room, $20,000 for the library, $15,000 for an instrument storage room and so on, a total of $100,000.  On June 9 I attended a fundraising dinner at the home of the French Ambassador - quite an occasion which raised over 10 million Shillings ($4,000).  The Dutch and French embassies have been strong supporters of KMS since it was established ten years ago in 2002, and diners paid one million shillings in cash in a basket to hear both ambassadors (right and second right respectively) sing a Russian song - quite memorable!