25 Jun, 2008 With Poise and Grace !
If anyone can upstage South Africa’s living legend, Nelson Mandela,
it’s the Children of Agape. Against the pain of losing their parents to Aids, these 15 children sing and dance with a raw, pulsating energy. This week they will join the party in London to celebrate Mandela’s 90th birthday. Their harmonies lift the spirits; their solo voices are searing. What strikes one is their poise and grace. They sing with honesty: no fuss, no nerves, no showing off – they just stand and deliver.
Such startling self-possession is shaped by their tragic circumstances. They are among an estimated 1.2 million Aids orphans in South Africa, victims of a pandemic that has left almost six million living with Aids/HIV. ‘
So writes the Times of London with great accuracy about this stunning
choir recently brought to my attention and now hopefully brought to
the attention of so many others through their performance at Hyde Park
on Friday 27th of June.
Wow! I would too love to be able to sing with poise and grace…to just stand and deliver….no fuss, no nerves…etc. Can’t ever see it happening unfortunately, but on the other hand I am happy enough with my lot, this lot that get’s me by. (Just about!)
Of course we are excited now that the day is near and we are so lucky
to be a part of something that really means a lot to us. I always said that on looking back we felt that our participation in the Mandela Freedom concerts was among our personal career highlights, and that writing ‘Mandela Day’ – a beautiful song – one of our best ever impulsive ideas.
Listening again to it today some twenty years after the event, somehow it has never sounded so good!
Jim Kerr