Kitui cathedral choir: why is the Kitui cathedral choir so good?

The Kitui cathedral choir (Our Lady of Africa Kitui Catholic Choir) is truly a world-class outfit. That is the conclusion you come to, whenever you get a chance to listen to them singing in a mass.  Or when you listen to any of their recordings. Listening to the Kitui cathedral choir at work, you quickly realize that it is performance is at par with that of any world class choir anywhere in the world. And that leads to the question as to how the Kitui cathedral choir has been able to attain such high standards.

In my assessment, one of the factors that has led to Kitui cathedral choir’s excellence is good financing. For the choir operating at the bishop’s seat, it has to be well financed which in turn translates into good performance.

Another factor that has likely led to Kitui cathedral choir’s excellence is good leadership. Looking at how well the Kitui cathedral choir is coordinated, you don’t need a compass to figure out that there is good leadership structure behind it all. So that is leadership in terms of the choir masters as well as strategic leadership on the part of the cathedral/diocese which coordinates the choir’s operations at a higher level.

Yet another factor that has likely led to Kitui cathedral choir’s excellence is dedication by the members. Listening to the Kitui cathedral choir singing, you easily see that they must have put hundreds if not thousands of hours into practice, for them to become so good. And that is testament to the members’ dedication. It helps too, of course, that the Kitui cathedral choir operates in an urban setting, meaning that the members are mostly individuals who operate on fixed schedules, which probably makes the scheduling of choir practice easy. And the urban setting also means that the members probably don’t have to travel too far to get to the cathedral for practice. You can’t compare it with a rural choir, whose members have to walk for long distances to attend practice sessions and whose members operate on unpredictable rural schedules.