Erika (Sissy) McGurk. Photo supplied
Oudtshoorn’s well known vocalist Sissy (Erika) McGurk is on her way to the UK, France, the USA, New Zealand and Australia for a Round the World Tour!
Overseas tours have this time of year become an annual event for Sissy. After touring the UK in 2012, 2013 and 2014 she performed in Canada in 2015 and France, Holland, the UK and Germany in 2016. In 2017 she toured the states of Georgia, Alabama and Tennesee in the USA and returned in 2018 to tour the states of Colorado, Utah and Nevada.
Sissy’s husband and musical director, Dr Barry McGurk explained: “All the invitations to perform overseas come from some of the thousands of tourists who attended our dinner show, Magic Moments, in our home in Oudtshoorn over a five year period until 2017, when we retired from regular shows. Our show won the Lilizela National Tourism Award in 2016 for the best cultural and lifestyle experience in South Africa. We are still very proud of this.
“The show led to us having friends all over the world. Although retired we still do a small number of shows at our home for tour groups from Australia and New Zealand, largely out of loyalty to the tour operators. One consequence of this loyalty on our part is that Sissy has been invited by the tour operators to perform in New Zealand and Australia this year as well as being invited back to the USA, France and the UK.
“The Round the World tour will last two months. We will arrive in Cambridge, UK at the end of June, spend a week in Britanny, France before heading across the Atlantic to California, USA for a couple of weeks.
“From there we will head west across the Pacific to Auckland, New Zealand and to Sydney, Australia for a week. We then head back to London for a couple of weeks to visit my kids before heading south to our home.”
According to Sissy she is really excited to travel around the world to sing!
“I have had so many wonderful experiences performing in various parts of the world that I never ever thought I would visit. I spent 40 years happily singing in churches in and around Oudtshoorn, and to be invited to so many overseas countries late in life is a dream come true.
“I am so looking forward to seeing our friends down under. I have promised not to mention the Boks or All Blacks to the Kiwis!”
Sissy told Die Hoorn that it is really dificult to pick a favourite place from all the places she had visited previously.
“I enjoyed singing with a fantastic black gospel choir in Memphis, as gospel is where my roots are, but I also enjoyed singing at the home of country music in Nashville and jazz at venues in Las Vegas and Denver. Solo concerts with supporting acts in Paris and Amsterdam were frightening as I was very nervous but they were also very exciting and memorable. The American audiences are the noi-siest with lots of whooping and hollering but the friendliest and most appreciative crowds are in the UK. If I have to pick one place that I really love, it’s the UK. And this has nothing to do with my husband being English.”