South African Choral Music (Amakwaya): Song, Contest and the ...

8.3 Adult and Community Choirs
8.3.3 Khabi Mngoma and the National Choir Festival
Contrary to the popular belief,136 Khabi Mngoma did not initiate the idea of the festival, as he himself
admitted: "The Ford Motor Company did try somebody else".137 Ludumo Magangane confu:ms
this:
When I interviewed Khabi Mngoma two years before he died, I indicated this to him, everybody says
you started the NCE He says no, he did not. And I said who? Ford started the competition. And the
competition was mainly for black choirs. And then Ford settled the competition because they wanted
more visibility in the black communities as a car company.l38
It all started in 1978. The Company looked for a field where it could launch a marketing campaign.
One of the main reasons was that increasing foreign criticism of South Africa's Apartheid
policy affected her trade relations with foreign companies. Ford "recognised the need to contribute
towards preserving the cultural heritage of South Africa" and decided to broaden its development
programme in order to justify its continued involvement in the country.139 After considering the
question of how to support black communities, Ford allowed the choice in this public relations
exercise to fall on choral music since the growing interest in and popularity of choral events, and
particularly competitions, promised wide exposure. Another reason was that Ford intended to target
the black middle class, which made amakwqya the most suitable area of investment. Ford entrusted
Future Marketing, an event managing company, with developing a concept of a choral competition
and bringing it to realisation:
Ian Bernhardt and Mr. Davidson were running an agency, a promotion agency called Future Marketing.
They - as a promotion agency - were asked by the then director [D. B. Pitt] of the Ford Motor Company
to come up with a scheme of establishing a choir festival, which would increase or promote the image of
the Ford Motor Company. The company had to justify its stay in the country - South Africa - and must
be seen to be contributing to improving the quality of life of Black people. So they came up with this
idea. 14O
The result was branded as Ford Choirs in Contest. The first competition, which attracted thirty
choirs from the Johannesburg area,141 proved to be problematic, as Ludumo Magangane remembers:
So in the first year - I know the first year was 1978 because I with our church choir took part in those
finals - competitions did not go according to how Ford liked them to go... [the problem was] the whole
organisation, even getting choirs and all that, because the people who were involved, they were not
musicians themselves, just professionals running a PR company who were asked to put this choir
competition together.142
136 For instance Khabi Mngoma, Stu4J of the Musicology of African Music in South Africa, unpublished MS quoted from 1.
M. Burger, 1990: 378ff; also D. Reid, "The Old Mutual/Telkom National Choir Festival: a 1999 Choral Perspective", in
Ars Nova (Vo!. 31, 1999 & Vo!. 32, 2000): 58.
137 Khabi Mngoma, interview with Ludumo Magangane, University of Zululand, May 1997.
138 Personal communication with Ludumo Magangane, Springs, February 12, 2001.
139 D. B. Pitt, in the foreword to Khabi Mngoma, 1980.
140 Khabi Mngoma, interview with Ludumo Magangane, University of Zululand, May 1997.
141 P. J. Nhlapho, and Sibongile Khumalo, 1993?: Section 3, The Eisteddfod (no page numbers); the Programme for
Ford Choirs 1982 contradicts Nhlapho's and Khumalo's findings by stating that thirty choirs from all over southern
Africa had enrolled in the inauguration year of the festival.
142 Personal communication with Ludumo Magangane, Springs, February 12, 2001.
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