Kenyan Boys Choir
The Kenyan Boys Choir, brought to worldwide fame after performing at President Barack Obama’s inauguration in November 2008, constitutes of 24 choir boys formed in Nairobi in 1998.
The boys, aged between 14 and 25, were personally selected by the choir’s visionary founder and conductor Joseph Muyale Inzai. The story behind the Kenyan Boys Choir is inspirational, with Joseph Muyale Inzai having given up his job in order to run the choir in the hope that the would give the boys a better start in life than he himself had.
Following their performance at President Obama’s inauguration, the Choir were signed by Universal Music and in June 2009 released their critically acclaimed first album; ‘The Spirit of Africa’ which was one of the feel-good albums of the year.
The choir has a wide-ranging repertoire comprising a variety of popular chants and songs from across Africa with hope and optimism. They have made their influence felt internationally, especially in the United States where the choir has toured many times to rapturous acclaim, earning comparisons with the Harlem Boys Choir of New York and being praised as providing a positive image of young black men. In Europe it has been compared to the Vienna Boys Choir, but there are big differences too. When in live performance, the Kenyan Boys Choir dress in tribal costumes and perform choreographed dance routines – all of which adds to the freshness and vitality of this extraordinarily talented group of young men.
With 25-40 members, the choir has also been a vehicle for social cohesion in Kenya, where audiences have flocked to hear music from their own tribal traditions. At a time when traditional ways of life are under assault from modernity – in particular because of rural migration to cities – the importance of this cannot be underestimated.
The choir itself is set up as a democracy with each member elected to government-style posts. This ensures that the boys are responsible for running the choir themselves rather than relying on Joseph to do it all for them. It gives them a sense of discipline, and that comes through in the songs, which are remarkable for their clarity and musical exactitude as well as for their soulfulness.
The Kenyan Boys Choir most recently had a huge success as the first ever African Choir to appear at the renowned Beijing International Music Festival in October 2009, with a sold out show to 2000 people. In addition to their nationwide tour of the UK in April, a multiple date tour of South East Asia and China is now being planned for the summer of 2010.