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Lifestyle Writer
And just how boring church services would be without the hymn?

Music has always been an important part of prayer and there is no better way to uplift and edify the soul without music.

Tomorrow, leading choral group — ZimPraise — is going down the memory lane to present a delightful concert of hymns. The songs will be performed in English, Shona and isiNdebele by a line-up of musicians of up to 100 vocalists. Added to this will be special guest appearances by Edward Gomba and Chiwaridzo, who are well known singers.

Joseph Madziyire, the chief executive of ZimPraise was yesterday in high spirits saying the concert would rejuvenate the youths.

“We have decided to go back to basics and perform hymns the way our forefathers used to do it. The concert will help to resolve two important aspects. The two aspects are — religious and cultural.

Culturally, we are saying why is it that nowadays the good die young.

“Where are the youths getting it wrong. We know with the advent of technology, a lot has been forgotten and we are saying no to that. Let’s appreciate who we are as Zimbabweans.

“Secondly, and that is biblical of course, we are saying let’s go back to Jesus. The world as we know it now has become materialistic.

People have shifted their focus from Jesus to money and other material things,” he said.

The affable Madziyire also reiterated that the theme for the concert “Uncovering Ancient Wells” was taken from Genesis 26 verse 18.

“The verse is about Isaac who was told to re-dig the wells of Abraham.

Essentially, we are saying let’s rediscover ourselves and go back into time. We want to sing the hymns the way it should be just in the good old days,” he said.

Madziyire said the show was aimed at affording the youths an opportunity to cherish and appreciate the hymns as much as the older generation.

“This is an experience to cherish and this is why we are going to perform hymns from different denominations including the Methodist, Catholic, and Seventh Day Adventist Church. The ZimPraise junior choir will also sing the songs that the senior choir performed during the formative years,” he said.

Guest to feature at the concert include Government officials, bishops and pastors from several churches and organisations.

Madziyire said the good thing about the concert was that the youths will re-jig some of the old hymns to spice them up. Entrance to the concert is going for $5 for advance tickets and it will be recorded live and the DVD will be released by the end of June.

However, the annual DVD recording which usually takes place in July has been moved to October this year at the Glamis Arena.

“This is because of deterrent freezing temperatures in July which is pretty much in winter. So we have decided to move the concert to October since it is an open air concert, Madziyire said.

ZimPraise will headline at this year’s Megafest Festival in the US hosted by the revered preacher TD Jakes.

MegaFest is one of the world’s premium gospel events and the choir will be the main act following recommendations from TD Jakes.

However, the phenomenon of having hymn concept is not new globally as last year the biggest of them all was the London Song Festival which displayed a thought-provoking and exciting range of music in programmes that illuminate important and recurring facets of 20th century and earlier history.

The festival explored with composers, particularly in the turbulent times of the 20th century, reacted to oppressive regimes. Special feature was the oldest composers, Richard Strauss (born 150 years ago) and Dmitri Shostakovich; on how they dealt with the Nazi and Soviet regimes that they faced.

Highlights included Entartete Musik (Degenerate Music) — a song-based reconstruction of the infamous Düsseldorf exhibition of 1938, intended to alert the German public to supposedly inferior and dangerous forms of music, particularly jazz and Jewish music.