Celestial Chorale Uganda pulls off maiden concert

Celestial Chorale Uganda, a youthful, semi-professional, 80-member choral musical ensemble is now fully active following its successful maiden concert that took place at Theatre La Bonita in Kampala on Sunday, November 24, 1024.

The brains behind the highly exciting energetic musical group is Herbert Muyomba, a popular music teacher, trainer, choral conductor, organist and music writer/arranger.

“I have been involved in music education and music performance since 2014. During my decade-long career, I have taught many young people. So, last year I got the idea of gathering together my former students, musical colleagues and some music students in secondary school and university with whom I am associated. We did a production at the National Theatre on October 1 (2023) and that marked the beginning of Celestial Chorale Uganda.”

“Members of the choir are generally young people, in their 20s. We sing songs in various languages, including languages from West Africa, South Africa, Uganda, East Africa. We also croon songs in English, French, Latin and Arabic. We do music at social, corporate and non-corporate functions."

“Our major aim is to identify and develop individual talents. We want to popularise classical music; to make people love it. We desire to revive our beautiful hymns many of which are currently out of use. We want to bring classical music to a wider audience, from the church to the theatre,” Muyomba explained.

Celestial Chorale Uganda is a versatile musical group. It performs all music genres including classical music, Church hymns, high-life music (mainly from West Africa, South Africa, East Africa), take five, Arabic music, folk music, contemporary music, etc.

The Founding Director of Celestial Chorale Uganda, Herbert Muyomba delivering his thanksgiving message.

The choir also has the competence to blend music. It fuses traditional musical instruments with western instruments.

Fr Joseph Musana, a musical priest from Fort Portal Catholic Diocese admired the choir for its top-notch musicianship and concert artistry.

Fr Richard Bainomugisha from Mbarara Archdiocese also marvelled at the choir’s ability to fuse classical and ordinary/contemporary musical styles.

Celestial Chorale Uganda members and wellwishers cutting cake in celebration of the choir's inaugration at Theatre La Bonita in Kampala on Sunday, November 24, 2024.

Mr Deo Oyire also admired the choir’s versatile/extensive repertoire, the voice-projection skills and general smartness of the choristers.

The Chairman of the choristers of Mbarara Archdiocese, Innocent Muhereza also spoke well of Celestial Chorale Uganda.

Muyomba said his choir had no sponsors, save Fr Thomas Sserwadda, a Ugandan Catholic priest (currently on studies in the US), who has always made enormous sacrifices to ensure the choir’s progress. Nonetheless, he is very optimistic about the choir’s future.

“Surely, we don’t have any sponsor, apart from our fans who bought tickets to our maiden show. That is why the choir is very grateful to Fr Thomas Sserwadda. He is studying in the US. Surprisingly, every time we are in need, he sends us some cash within his means, which enables us to move on. But of course, our financial modesty will not deter us from aiming high. We want to participate in big music festivals in Africa, Europe and the US. And very soon that will come to pass,” Muyomba said with admirable determination.