|
|
|
|
|
|
Move your mouse over a picture to enlarge
|
Message to the Lions Choir from the Great Cliff Morgan
Thanks to the energy, flair and imagination of Mark Burrows, the British and
Irish Lions Male Voice Choir is becoming a traditional part of a Lions tour.
The choir was first formed in 2001 when the Lions toured Australia and then
they were in New Zealand for the 2005 tour.
Now the choir is to tour South Africa to perform charity concerts in Cape
Town and Johannesberg as well as performing at Rorke's Drift and Beaufort
West.
This choir, conducted by Haydn James, is made up of 75 men from 18
different male voice choirs from all parts of the British Isles - from Scotland,
England, Ireland and Wales.
It is now more than 50 years since I toured with the 1955 Lions to South
Africa. We were a young team and we were very excited when we learnt we
were going to fly to South Africa - a new experience for most of us. We flew
via Rome , Cairo, Khartoum, Nairobi, Livingstone and, finally, to Jan Smuts
airport in Johannesberg. We arrived several hours late but to our amazement,
there were thousands of people waiting, on that cold June night, to welcome
and cheer our team. So we sang for them, songs from our home countries
and then "Sarie Marais" in Afrikaans. A couple of days later the Rand Daily
Mail carried a front page headline: "This is the greatest team ever to visit South
Africa!" And we hadn't even played a match!
Rugby and singing go hand in hand. Harmony in the team creates exciting
running rugby on the field, four part harmony in the choir creates glorious
sounds. I hope that the rugby on this tour will be fantastic but what I know
for sure is that this choir will fill offer you a truly wonderful concert.
It was Pablo Casals who once said that the greatest respect any artist can
pay to music is to give it life. This choir, I promise, will certainly do that and
will send you home with a song in your heart.
Cliff Morgan
- [Cardiff, Wales & The British Lions) 1951 - 1958 29 Caps, (3 Tries)
Cliff was an amazingly gifted fly-half as well as being very strong, nimble and an accurate kicker. Cliff played a major part in Wale’s Grand Slam success in 1952 as well as captaining the Lions to victory in South Africa (1955).
|
|