By Jim Fisher-Thompson

USINFO Staff Writer

Washington -- Members of Yale University's alumni chorus hope to share the power of music as they perform in South Africa and donate concert proceeds and musical instruments to local groups.

The 150 singers in the group are giving concerts in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown and Cape Town June 20 to July 6, according to McKinney Russell, chorus member and former U.S. Information Agency officer.

Yale Alumni Chorus President Sharon Agar told USINFO that in addition to giving formal performances, members will reach out informally to South African singing groups as a way “to foster international understanding through the universal language of song."

The tour kicked off in Johannesburg, with the Yale singers performing with the city's Festival Orchestra and Chorus, along with leading South African soprano Bronwen Forbay.

Concerts will be held at City Hall in Pretoria, where the chorus will sing with four local choirs. Concert proceeds will be given to one of the choirs, whose entire membership is blind.

The Yale singers also will perform in the mainly black township of Zwide, outside Port Elizabeth, where they will learn about local conditions as well as “the valuable social work of the Ubuntu Education Fund," said Agar. The fund provides comprehensive HIV/AIDS services for 40,000 at-risk children in the townships of Port Elizabeth.

Following the Zwide performance, the chorus will perform at the Feather Market Centre in Port Elizabeth with the Ubuntu Children's Choir, the General Motors Employee Choir, the Eastern Cape Youth Orchestra and the Joy of Africa Choir. The Ubuntu choir will benefit from the proceeds.

A highlight of the tour will be joint performances with the Simon Estes Music School in Cape Town to help raise money for its arts-oriented programs. Agar said the chorus will "meet with teachers and students at the school to learn about their program, trade songs with the school's choir and explore ways the Yale group might support the work of the school."

An important part of the tour is supplying much-needed musical instruments.

Russell asked chorus members planning to travel to South Africa to scour their closets and attics in search of gently used instruments that could be donated to the Eastern Cape Philharmonic Orchestra (ECPO) Music Development Program. He said the response was overwhelming.

Thirty reconditioned instruments are being donated to ECPO, where "as many as 18 or more students often have to share one trumpet," Russell said.

In addition to donated trumpets, clarinets, flutes, oboes and violins, he said, several members of the chorus used their own money to purchase two brand-new double French horns and a very good used wood bassoon for the ECPO students.

Established in 1998, the Port Elizabeth-based ECPO program teaches 300 children a year from disadvantaged backgrounds how to play musical instruments.

In the past 10 years, the Yale Alumni Chorus has performed in China, Russia, Europe and Latin America. Their "Power of Song Tour" in South Africa is sponsored in part by the Pfizer pharmaceutical company and General Motors of South Africa.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) NNNN