Glenwood’s Charel sets sights on Talent America

CHAREL Haasbroek, a local artist is hoping to take America by storm, in Talent America this July.

The Glenwood singer recently scooped a handful of awards at Talent Africa’s KZN regional and national competition in Johannesburg. He earned five gold medals for the Broadway, Country, Opera, Jazz and Pop categories, Top Ten for vocals and first place overall in his age category and was selected to be part of Team SA. The prestigious selection will afford him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to represent the country at Talent America in New York City this July.

The local performer was born in Bloemfontein, but his father is an airforce pilot which meant the family moved quite a lot before settling in Stellenbosch, where he spent much of his childhood before making Durban his home as an adult. Charel started singing when he was just four-years-old at church. He soon became part of the Tygerburg Children’s Choir and the Cape Youth Choir but stopped singing for many years while he carved a career for himself as an artist specialising in oil paintings.

“I started singing again about five years ago, played around doing karaoke with friends, then won a karaoke competition and was approached to sing a cabaret show at the local theatre,” he recalled. After a successful cabaret show at the Rhumbelow theatre, Charel was bitten by the performing art bug. “I started with cabaret, but then added, swing, jazz, big band and blues to my repertoire,” he said.

Content with the occasional performance, he remembers singer Krystle Temmerman last year’s Talent Africa success story. “We met at a market where she was performing a few months ago. She asked for someone to come up and sing All I ask of You, from Phantom of the Opera, with her and I went up. Since then she has taken me under her wing and persuaded me to enter Talent Africa,” he said.

Charel said Talent Africa has been an “amazing journey” thus far, with a string of medals, certificates and even his South African colours for his vocal ability. He now hopes to raise enough funds to make the trip to New York for the Talent America competition which would also allow him and the rest of Talent Africa’s Team SA to possibly “make it on the global stage.” “As part of the competition, contestants go to a Broadway musical workshop, where we get to work with a Broadway musical cast and perform and interact with many top talent scouts in the industry,”he said.

Concerned about funding which would cost around R85 000 for the trip to New York, Charel told Berea Mail, “It’s a huge struggle trying to get funds together for something like this, because you have all the awards and are chosen, but for artists, sponsorship and funding is very difficult because people are more inclined to sponsor mainstream sports like cricket, soccer and rugby instead of supporting arts and culture.”

The opportunity is one not to be missed for anyone lucky enough to be selected and Charel’s personal dream is to perform in NYC and bring home the Talent America trophy. “No matter how stressed I am, or what I am going through in life, when I’m on stage, I’m transported to a different reality and can hit every high note. The best feeling as a performer is having your audience screaming before you’ve sung the last note. I think it might be similar to when a batsman hits his first six and the stadium goes wild.”

“I just want an opportunity to make Durban and South Africa proud and show the world – this is what SA has to offer, so stop looking at the negative on mainstream news but know there are passionate talented people that love our country,” he said.

Anyone who would like to sponsor or assist with any donations, can email him on charelartist@gmail.com or visit https://wesharecommunityprojects.com/wesharecrowdfunding/index.cfm?username=charelartist