Behind a music stand in his grey school uniform, Khanya Mtala takes a deep breath. The shy teenager locks eyes with his teacher sitting at the piano and releases his powerful baritone voice. “You my soul, you my heart,” he sings in German, the melody of Robert Schumann’s Widmung (Dedication) resonating in the small room.
His vibrato suggests years of training, but the 17-year-old took up classical singing 10 months ago.
