African children's choir to tell story of orphans

Edwinsmith Kigozi, the team leader for the Watoto Children’s Choir, knows firsthand how this choir changed his life.

The 18 children who will perform in Tucson on Wednesday are orphans from Uganda. Kigozi was once one of them — he lost his father at the age of 5 and his mother at the age of 11 and then visited the U.S. and England with one of the children’s choirs.

“Every child that has traveled through Watoto choirs goes back home different,” he says. “They are more bold, they can stand straight and talk to people and look them straight in the eye.”

The seven choirs are part of a program started by the Watoto Church in Uganda in 1994 to care for children orphaned by war and AIDS. The choirs have since toured the world and performed in high-profile spots such as Buckingham Palace and the White House. The choir coming to Tucson has spent much of the last month in Arizona as part of its four-month tour in the U.S.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

“The gist of the story is the children have either lost one or both of their parents or were abandoned,” Kigozi says. “But along the way, there was an intervention by Watoto, the church, and because of that intervention the children were able to get a place to stay and therefore have a hope and a future.”

That is the story the performance will tell at the Wednesday production, “Oh, What Love.” Kigozi says the story of the orphans also mirrors the Christian narrative of separation from God and restoration through the intervention of Jesus Christ, a theme of the production.

Anyone who comes “should expect vibrant music and vibrant dance,” Kigozi says. “They should expect to experience life differently.”