Rhoda introduces opera to schools in Kenya
Music
Rhoda introduces opera to schools in Kenya
Friday 12 November 2021
Opera singer, producer and director Rhoda Ondeng Wilhelmsen. PHOTO | BOWL
Summary
- She is already dreaming of her next opera tentatively titled “The Hummingbird” based on the life of environmentalist Wangari Maathai, but during our conversation she also drops a teaser that she could be working on a Christmas concert for the month. next.
- Rhoda endeavors to demystify classical music and more particularly opera by targeting schoolchildren.
- Through her foundation, Baraka Opera Trust, she exhibits, educates and inspires the younger generation to push the boundaries of art and performance.
International opera performer Rhoda Ondeng ‘Wilhelmsen was in an exuberant mood as she left for Europe after the world premiere of the opera “Nyanga: The Runaway Grandmother” at the Kenya National Theater last week.
“Nyanga achieved his goal, he produced superb vocals, acting, technical lights, and the whole cast was brilliant,” the opera soprano said of the success of the new Kenyan opera.
She is already dreaming of her next opera tentatively titled “The Hummingbird” based on the life of environmentalist Wangari Maathai, but during our conversation she also drops a teaser that she could be working on a Christmas concert for the month. next.
Rhoda endeavors to demystify classical music and more particularly opera by targeting schoolchildren. Through her foundation, Baraka Opera Trust, she exhibits, educates and inspires the younger generation to push the boundaries of art and performance.
“Knowing that there are thousands of other Rhodas across the Kenyan landscape, that means they just need a door to be opened to them and that’s my role,” she says.
She is passionate about touring schools with 30 minute productions by four or five hours of highly skilled musicians, singers, players and dancers. “The new curriculum is based on the discovery and development of talents and skills, but we don’t have enough teachers for the arts, so we are playing our part,” she says.
Rhoda herself was first staged at the age of 7 by a Scottish missionary teacher from Thogoto Junior who spotted her talent.
It was her teachers who first exposed her to classical music, through theory and training.
“It takes years of practice and training to become an opera singer and that’s what we try to do with the young talents some of whom have appeared in the Nyanga opera,” she says. She quickly learned to be confident on stage during her first competition at age 13 at the Kenya Music Festival at the Kenya National Theater.
“I have never looked back since and I am now in a position where I can help young people realize their dreams and realize their potential if they want to pursue their dream in classical music. “
In 2012, Rhoda produced the very first Kenyan opera “Ondieki the Fisherman” written in 1973, by Francis William Chandler, then head of English at the Limuru Girls School. Rhoda, who was only 16, was chosen to play the opera heroine in the original production.
“People discovered that opera was not a foreign concept, it could be Kenyan,” she says. Since then, his mission has been to introduce opera to ordinary Kenyans dressed in Kenyan clothes. “
The heart of opera is to build human beings, says Rhoda. “It’s about developing self-confidence and potential. Opera may be a form of musical art, but it’s really about life: loves, hatred, cravings, sorrows, everything that makes us human ends up in an opera, ”says -she.
Her face shines when she remembers the Italians’ reaction when a “little Kenyan lady” won an opera competition in that country.
However, the highlight of her career was singing at the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo, Norway, when the honor was officially bestowed on Professor Wangari Maathai.
Her grandmother, the heroine of “Nyanga: Runaway Grandmother” inspired Rhoda with her storytelling and singing.
The opera is based on the story of her grandmother who converted to Christianity in the hope of meeting her mother in the afterlife. The arrival of Christianity in the remote part of the Kano Plains illustrates the clash of two cultures and the victory of good over evil.
Auditions for Nyanga were held in January 2020 and four months later vocal instruction had started with vocal instructor Ciru James and executive producer Michael James, who is also a songwriter, and rearranged the music to make it suitable. to the orchestra.
The original plan to create Nyanga in October 2020 was disrupted by the pandemic, but rehearsal actors used this time to rehearse even more.
“A lot of things stopped during the pandemic but Nyanga the runaway grandmother took off because in the calm of the garden we were practicing. Yes, masks were put on and distancing was observed, but with the keyboard in the open, we were able to practice. “
“We brought Kenyans together in one production. I don’t know of anything that builds bridges other than music and in this case opera was a bridge.