Legendary Chorister Harry Masenya Celebrated at St Raphael Church in Mamelodi

by Daluxolo Moloantoa · December 18, 2023

The St Raphael Church in Mamelodi recently subscribed to The Southern Cross magazine. It is a timeous development because the December 2023 edition of the magazine features a parishioner of the church.

Mr Harry Masenya has been a choirmaster at the church since 1959. In this period, he has also been a composer of liturgical music and a noted choirmaster in the Archdiocese of Pretoria.

Yesterday at Mass, the parishioners of the St Raphael Church received copies of the magazine for the first time. They expressed great elation at having one of their own inside the magazine.

They also said that they couldn’t wait to see what else was on offer inside the magazine. St Raphael Church was the home parish of the well-known anti-apartheid couple Dr Fabian and Mrs Florence Ribeiro.

It was the Mamelodi community surgeon and fellow choral music lover who taught Mr Masenya how to play the organ at the church in the early 1960s. The Ribeiro couple were featured in the January 2022 edition of The Southern Cross magazine.

In the December article, titled “Composer for the pope: A sung hero” Mr Masenya goes down memory lane, relating the story of his boyhood days at the St Gerard Church in Eastwood (now renamed Garsfontein) in Pretoria. He also tells of his early beginnings in becoming a choir member and the journey to becoming a choirmaster, and ultimately composing choral music which has been a staple of church music in the Archdiocese of Pretoria and beyond ever since.

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