OYENGA Basel

OYENGA Basel

Director: Oliver Rudin | Staging: Daniel Raaflaub

The choir’s thirty young singers, all of them experienced performers, immerse their audience in a diverse program ranging from world music to jazz and pop. They captivate the audience with their expressive voices and a stage performance full of atmosphere and energy, but also contemplative and thought-provoking.

The internationally renowned Basel singers maintain a lively exchange with other choirs and cultures. Various concert tours, which have taken the choir to South Africa, Belgium, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Berlin, among other places, testify to this. Last year, the choir was even invited to Cameroon and performed together with the Cameroonian star singer Indira, among others.

The international response speaks for itself: in Pondoland, South Africa, the choir was presented with a Royal Award by King Mabhena for its intercultural commitment, and the concert in Peja, Kosovo, which took place at the invitation of the Kosovan choir Siparantum, was broadcast by Kosovo’s Channel One television station.

OYENGA Basel also successfully displays its artistic commitment at international festivals, most recently at the Ohrid Choir Festival (2022) and Berlin Loves You at Berliner Philharmonie (2024). At the unofficial Choir Olympics, the World Choir Games (2021) in Ghent and Antwerp, the Basel-based choir was awarded a gold medal and achieved third place in the category Jazz & Pop Ensembles.

OYENGA Basel is also present on the big stages at home. For example, the choir was involved in over twenty shows of the successful production Jesus Christ Superstar on the main stage of the Theater Basel. In addition to the Music meets Münster series of talks and concerts, the choir has also been presenting the Gospel Night in the Basel Minster on the first Sunday of Advent for the past twenty years, which has now become a magnet for tourists and the public in the entire tri-national region as part of the popular Basel Christmas.

Background / meaning of OYENGA

OYENGA comes from the Ewondo language spoken by the Beti peoples in Cameroon. The word itself carries the powerful meaning of radiating joy and shouting for joy. The artist Josée, who gifted us a sun on our 2023 trip to Cameroon, was inspired by her talent for decorative crafts, especially after she went through a difficult period of depression. For her, OYENGA represents the liberating cries of joy that she expresses through her art.

We deepened our research and, with Josée’s help, consulted a patriarch of the Fang-Beti-Bulu, Patriarch Ondobo Atangana of the Étoudi tribe. He explained that OYENGA comes from the word “Oyeng”, which is a voice of communication. In this context, OYENGA refers to an ovation—a joyful shout to honour someone or something. It can also be thought of as a musical note illustrating the manifestation of joy. There is also a traditional instrument called MVET OYENG (a type of zither harp).