JAMAICA Youth Chorale (JYC) is in celebratory mode after winning silver awards at the July 4-14 World Choir Games in South Africa.
The group — who competed last Thursday and Friday in the Champions Competition, second half of the Games — was awarded in the Spiritual and Mixed Chamber Choir genres.
JYC's principal, director and founder Gregory Simms is elated with the performance.
“I am very excited and satisfied by the performance the team gave, considering the circumstance we went through, we were not at our optimum,” he told the Jamaica Observer. “We experienced a major issue when our originally scheduled and booked flight was cancelled and that cancellation led to the team being split up, arriving on different days, taking two different routes...”.
As a result of the flight hiccup, Simms said the full team arrived in Johannesburg hours before they graced the stage.
“They got in about 11:00 pm and we had competition about midday the next day (Thursday) so that is how close we had to come in and go on, which is really a tough thing to do and to achieve the silver awards,” he explained. “Looking at the complex repertoire we had to compete with, I know we could have done better if we were at optimum; if we had arrived when we needed to arrive and do the necessary rest and hydration and exercises to be ready to compete when we needed to.”
The JYC competed against 11 choirs in the Mixed Chamber Choir category. Their collection comprised Psalm 24 by Noel Dexter, Northern Lights by Ola Gjeilo, Contate Domino by Josef Swider, and Andrew Marshall's Home Thoughts. The Spiritual category had 10 competitors; JYC copped the silver medal with My Soul's Been Anchored in The Lord by Carol Barnett, Give Me Jesus (Marques LA Garnett), Wade in The Water (Mark Butler) and Caan Ketch Mi Again (arranged by Andrew Marshall).
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