The projecting of musical and extra-musical elements in constructing choral identity with specific reference to three South African regional children’s choirs

Abstract

This article explores how three regional children’s choirs and their practitioners, from different provinces of South Africa, project a distinctly South African choral identity that they themselves construct by fabricating a mental representation of themselves, through the identification, organisation and interpretation of particular musical and non-musical elements. It is ultimately argued that each of the three choirs – The Eastern Cape Children’s Choir, Cantare Children’s Choir and the Tygerberg Children’s Choir – projects its own unique choral identity, which is inclusively South African.