More than 100 singers sign up before the new Overberg Choir sings a single note

Something remarkable has happened on the Cape Whale Coast. The Overberg Choir, the new community choir announced for the region in late June, will hold its very first rehearsal next week with well over 100 registered singers already signed up. It is a remarkable start for a choir barely two months old.

The first rehearsal takes place on Wednesday 2 September at De Wet Hall in Onrus, and is for registered members. The choir is open to any adult who loves to sing, whatever their experience, with no audition and no need to read music. The one thing that is essential is to register beforehand at www.overbergchoir.co.za. New singers are asked to sign up online first rather than simply arrive on the night, so that a seat, a name badge and the music can be ready and waiting for them.

To the more than one hundred people who have put up their hands, founder and Musical Director Cliff van Tonder has a simple message: thank you and well done. "To see this many people say yes, I will sing, before we have sung a single note together, is beyond anything I hoped for," he said. "Every one of them took a brave step, walking into something new and giving it a go, and I could not be prouder of them. We are going to have the time of our lives. And because every net rand we raise from our concerts will go to local charities chosen by the members themselves, the whole Overberg stands to gain. This is a choir that sings for the joy of it and performs for the good of others."

A Carols by Candlelight in December

The choir already has its first public date in the diary. On the evening of Saturday 19 December, Overberg Choir will host and perform a Carols by Candlelight, in the Amphitheatre at the Landskein Wine Estate in Stanford, which promises to be an evening of Christmas songs and much-loved sing-along carols under the summer sky. The public will be warmly invited, and details will follow closer to the time.

Four decades of community choirs

The Overberg Choir is the newest chapter in a long story. Cliff van Tonder, its founder and Musical Director, has spent forty years building community choirs across two continents. Cape Town born and England formed, he founded The Sandton Choir in Johannesburg in 2002, which is still singing today, before moving to the United Kingdom and founding Elmbridge Choir in Surrey in 2005. That choir grew into Surrey Music, a registered charity of three choirs, a big band and a youth ensemble that became, in its time, the largest community music society in England and raised some R2.5 million for good causes. In 2019 he was honoured at the Palace of Westminster with the British Citizen Award for Services to the Arts. After a spell in Australia, he came home to South Africa in May 2026 and settled in Hermanus, where Overberg Choir is, in his own words, a homecoming.

The choir carries the same spirit that has run through all of Cliff's choirs for four decades. Everyone who wants to sing is welcome, no one is turned away for a lack of experience, and the singing itself comes first. Members take on a warm mix of contemporary pop, rock anthems, musical theatre and jazz standards, the kind of songs a whole room gets behind, from George Michael to Mariah Carey, and Bon Jovi to Queen, with audio rehearsal tracks to practise at home so that anyone can take part.

Who can join, and how

Rehearsals are held on Wednesday evenings at De Wet Hall in Onrus, a short drive from central Hermanus. The first five months, from September to December 2026, are free, after which members will pay a small monthly subscription kept as low as possible. Singers from across Greater Hermanus, Onrus, Vermont, Sandbaai, Zwelihle, Mount Pleasant, Hawston, Stanford, Kleinmond and the surrounding Overberg communities are all welcome.

There is still room for more voices, and registration is the only way to claim a place. Anyone who would like to be part of it can sign up at www.overbergchoir.co.za before coming along.