Gospel artists unite in Apostle Chitheka’s cause
Gospel artists on Friday night united and came together and shared the stage offering their renditions during a gospel concert held at Comesa Hall in Blantyre aimed at raising funds to go towards payment of medical bills for Apostle Enesia Chitheka Lewis, who is in South Africa for treatment.
Apostle Chitheka Lewis is a renowned singer, song writer and composer for a gospel group Chitheka Family. She is also a board member of the Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma).
The concert which started on Friday and spilled over to the early hours of Saturday, attracted an impressive audience despite that it was cold on the night.
With a long list of gospel artists on the night, some failed to perform and these included Kelvin Sato, who travelled all the way from Mzuzu and Grace Chinga.
The gospel concert was organised by Hope of Glory Church where Apostle Chitheka Lewis ministers.
The church which is seeking to raise K7.5 million for the bills which totalled K10 million but it (church) already raised K2.5 million, hailed people for patronising the concert.
“We are thankful to people for coming to support us. We don’t take their presence for granted. It was cold but people came in large numbers to come and support Apostle Chitheka Lewis,” said the church’s former administrator.
As of yesterday, it was not yet clear as to how much the church had raised during the concert which saw musician Lloyd Phiri closing the chapter around past 5am.
During the concert, the audience was also treated to a performance by The Chitheka’s which was led by Apostle Chitheka Lewis’ daughter Esther.
Esther stunned people in the hall with her vocal ability as she led in several of Chitheka’s well known songs and although, her voice is not that strong as her mother, she did well.
The youthful female singer, who participated in the Sunbird Search for a Star competition and was in the top five, showed she has a future in music.
She started off with praise and worship songs that had people singing along before she belted out other songs including ‘Mchipululu Simofera,’ which had fellow artists taking to the dance floor.
“I have always loved singing and this is the work of my mother who has always supported me. The Search for a Star also gave me confidence and saw tonight things just went on with any problems. I just want to say thank you to Malawians for their support and love,” said Esther.
Several of the artists who performed spoke highly of Apostle Chitheka’s talent and prayed for her quick recovery.
Some of the artists who performed on the night include Thocco Kat imba, Ndi rande Anglican Voices, Peter Uyu Mlangeni, Marvellous Deeds, Ethel Kamwendo Banda, Allan Chirwa, Mau K, Neligo Women’s Choir, Princess Chitsulo, Gloria Kampingu Manong’a, Thoko Suya, Prince Yasin Jenala, Prophets of Vision (POV), Stevie Muliya and Favoured Martha.
Thocco said the show was important not only to gospel artists but the music industry saying it was for a cause.
“I would like to thank all the artists for coming together tonight to support Apostle Chitheka Lewis. This just shows the love and are also thankful to people for coming to support the show,” said the artist, creator of the track ‘Ndilibe Nanu Mawu.’
Other artists also said the show united them together for one cause although some bemoaned the gaps especially with performances where the master of ceremonies allowed other artists to perform more songs.
“There were lots of artists and they could have made it a point that every artist should perform two songs each to give chances to all to perform. But some artists performed more than three songs. All in all it was a good concert,” said one artist.
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