Decades ago I'd moonlight as repetiteur for a remarkable choir -
the Eoan Group.  The Voice of the Nation Ensemble. Picture:
Jessica Wylde Photography  Voice of the Nation Ensemble/ WA Jazz
Orchestra 3.5 stars Perth Concert Hall   Decades ago, several
nights a week, in a bleak warehouse in Cape Town, I'd moonlight
as repetiteur for a remarkable choir - the Eoan Group. Because
of apartheid, the so-called coloured people were barred from the
city's magnificently appointed, whites-only, opera house. They
could neither attend performances nor take part in them.  Joseph
Manca, a visionary choral trainer, would preside over
innumerable rehearsals of the Eoan Group's choir - and the end
result, more often than not, was hackle-raisingly fine.  So I
listened with especial care to Cape Town's rainbow choral group,
Voice of the Nation Ensemble. How had this multiracial ensemble
fared, I wondered, under South Africa's now-democratic
dispensation? Would it have the same thrilling intensity and
precision of the Eoan choir