Cape Town – A Philippi acapella group rose to victory at the first Cape Town acapella festival at the Artscape at the weekend.
Luthando Buffel of the Thy Will Be Done group said they were excited to have walked away with the R20 000 prize for coming first in the competition.
“We still cannot believe what happened, we are so excited. We won amongst 10 great choirs. We express our gratitude to the event organisers. We are a self-funded organisation and have never touched R20 000. We plan to record at the end of September. Recording will cost us R60 000. This R 20 000 will assist with that amount,” he said.
The festival which was sponsored by the National Arts Council had three top prizes. The first prize was R20 000, the second R10 000 and third R5 000.
Buntu Jobela, the artistic director of the festival, congratulated the winners and expressed his gratitude to partners and sponsors.
"The first ‘A Cappella Musical Festival at Artscape’ was a tremendous success. We would like to congratulate the festival organisers and partners for a job well done. It was an emotional time to those who lost but yet an exciting experience to those who took the prize money home. We take our hat off to our judges who understood their role and delivered on their tasks with a high level of diligence", he said.
The runners up were “brothers and sisters acapella group” and “Khayelitsha youth choir” who took second and third place.
Cape Town’s first acapella competition took place on Saturday at Artscape.