St Stithians Marimba Tour

St Stithians Marimba Tour

On Wednesday, 19 June, our marimba band travelled to Johannesburg to participate in the annual St Stithians Marimba Festival at St Stithians College. This was an excellent opportunity for a cultural exchange of music between our pupils and various schools in and around Johannesburg. As the only school from Botswana, many people were eagerly anticipating our performance. The festival was led by Mr Michael Sibanda, the Head of Marim-bas at St Stithians College. It was fascinating to learn that Mr Sibanda used to be the marimba teacher at Thornhill and left about 20 years ago to establish the marimba programme at St Stithians College.
We arrived at the venue in the afternoon, brimming with excitement at the prospect of playing marimbas with other schools. I had never experienced such a large group of children playing together so energetically and harmoniously, as if we had been practicing together for months. This event provided the schools with a chance to interact and allowed us to make new friends.

When it was time for the evening concert, each school had the opportunity to showcase their talent.
I can confidently say that we made our school and all our teachers very proud. We were perfectly in sync, and the energy in the hall was incredible. The crowd was singing and dancing to our performance. Thank you to all the parents who travelled to Johannesburg to support us, and a huge thank you to the music department for organising the trip.