In February 2005, Jane Cox, a member of the Worcester Volcano Community Choir, made contact with a group of 9 mine workers from the Cullinan Diamond Mine while visiting relatives in South Africa. On her return she shared her brief but wonderful experience of singing with them. This inspired the UK choirs to consider the possibility of raising funds to bring them over for a visit to the UK.

An invitation was sent to the group, inviting them for a 2 week visit in July 2006. With the possibility of coming to England, they enlisted four new members and took on the name ’The Diamond Choir’.

In England all three choirs set about the huge task of fundraising and organising the visit. In December 2005 we received the wonderful news that the DeBeers Group, who at that time owned the mine, had decided to pay for the choir’s flights.

The aim of the project was to enable the choirs to share their music, learn from each other’s culture and to build bridges of friendship across the world. It was hoped that the English choirs would learn to sing South African songs with more authenticity and maybe even learn to dance!

In April 2006 Hilary and Jane travelled to Cullinan to meet the choir, talk to mine officials about the visit and visit various  projects for whom we could raise funds during the UK visit.

The Diamond Choir arrived in July 2006. Their two week visit was a huge success. They visited local schools and sang to packed audiences in concerts at Worcester’s Huntingdon Hall, Tewkesbury Abbey and The Cheltenham Music Festival. Over the fortnight more than £13,000 was raised for HIV/AIDS projects in the township of Refilwe, where most of the Diamonds live.

The choirs had a wonderful time together learning and sharing songs and, in the case of our choirs, even managing to dance!

In April 2007 Hilary returned to South Africa, representing the UK choirs, to attend a ’Charity Event’ held by the Diamond Choir to present the money raised in the UK to the local community projects. She had the wonderful experience of staying with William (Diamond Bass) and Nomsa Miya in the township, and returned home determined to make a return visit with a choir from the UK.

For more photos and videos of the Diamond choirs UK visit, see:

www.dropshots.com/vocalantics and look in ‘albums’ on the left hand side.