|
Cliff van
Tonder
Cliff was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and before
arriving in the United Kingdom in 2004, he had spent 25 years
directing and conducting congregational and regional choirs all over Southern
Africa. Cliff is employed full-time as the Chief Operating Officer
of a well-known Financial Trading & Risk Management company in London.
Cliff’s involvement
in the Nkosi Johnson AIDS Foundation charity in South
Africa brought him close to the suffering of children
and families who were being devastated by the effect of HIV/AIDS. Cliff’s desire to find a
way to help raise money and awareness of their plight is what
sparked the idea of forming his first choir in South
Africa - the Sandton Choir – this choir helped raised
thousands of life-saving pounds for children’s charities in and around Johannesburg.
To those that know
him, it was no surprise when Cliff formed the Elmbridge
Choir in 2005 with the mission to create a way for
people from all walks of life, regardless of their
musical ability, to share their passion for singing with the rest of the world.
The choir exists solely to do charity concerts and there is no
doubt, listening to and looking at this group, that every
member takes pride and finds pleasure in being instrumental in
trying to help those in need around them in this way.
Listening to the
choir today, one would be hard pressed to believe that
Cliff has no musical training. It was at the
tender age of 13 when he first opened up the cover of
the antique Victorian pump-organ that in some strange
way had been beckoning at him – normally out of bounds
to kids of his age. In Cliff’s own words “I had
waited until the adults were away, and when I opened the
cover, there on the music stand was a hymn book, opened
at hymn number 894 - Amazing Grace. Being from a very
poor family, I had never touched a musical instrument
before, and my little hand quivered as I started pumping
the organ pedals with my feet and pressing my first notes
- and attempted to play Amazing Grace. Ten minutes later, when the
adults returned from their outing, the cover was closed and
the organ was silent - till this day no one
ever knew what happened between me and that little pump-organ then!”
Seven years later,
when his church choir ended up without a conductor,
remembering his encounter with the pump-organ and armed
with the memory of his note-less version of Amazing
Grace, Cliff volunteered for the job. He fondly
remembers playing "There's Power in the Blood" and
"Higher Ground" with one finger, trembling so much that the packed church
could have been forgiven for thinking that the organ's Vibrato
was set on maximum, and a nervously-tapping left foot that
would have “left Fred Astaire in a fit of jealous rage!”
Through the years
Cliff did improve however, and people came from
far-and-wide to hear their little church choir sing
popular hymns such as "Church in the Wildwood" and "Nearer my God to Thee". In
1981 Cliff conceptualized and present the first ever Choir Festival in South
Africa. This event spread out all over the country and
his personal highlight was being director of a mass choir
of over 1,800 members in Durban City Hall in September 1986.
The Elmbridge Choir consists
of approximately 75 regular members and their repertoire consists mainly of works
of a popular nature from across the choral spectrum. The
choir performs with professional backing tracks and aims to entertain
and ignite the love of music in all who hear them.
>> contact Cliff
|
News 
