?I hope you will not be too disappointed,? says Jacques Imbrailo, humble winner of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music, when I tell him that I will be attending his performance that afternoon.

I am surprised by his British accent, but after talking to him for a while, an Afrikaans undertone slips into his speech and I am reminded that English is a second language to this farm boy from the Free State.

In fact, it appears that English is his third language, because as soon as he smoothes forth his baritone voice over the Rhodes Chapel, it seems as if the sung word is his first, intrinsic language.

Dwarfed in front of an expectant audience and high ceilings, Imbrailo looks nothing more than a goed gemanierde, pious choirboy clenching his fists over the buttons of his stiff tuxedo.

From mid-audience I can?t see the shadows of stubble that I had seen earlier in the afternoon sun. But the voices of the many angels in the detailed painting overhead are put to shame as soon as the foreign words tumble off the 30-year-old?s tongue.

Daring to sing

Imbrailo is truly a young artist, particularly in a field where many of his audience members are bald, wrinkled and close to double his age. But singing was never Imbrailo?s childhood ambition. ?It was a dare,? Imbrailo says, ?I still sometimes wonder why I am doing this?.

When The Drakensberg Boys? Choir came to perform in Imbrailo?s farming village near Welkom ?the whole town went to see?. Imbrailo was sitting among his friends, ?a bunch of Afrikaans laaities?, when a ?very posh, English-speaking? conductor asked the audience if anyone wanted to audition for the choir.

The mischievous boys egged each other into auditioning, before running out of the audition room leaving a young Imbrailo (a wrestler and a rugby player more accustomed to sports trials) at the mercy of the conductor. Needless to say, this encounter was the start of symphonies of success to come.

After school, Imbrailo studied law at Potchefstroom University, ?taking singing lessons on the side?.

?When you are brought up as a South African farmer, the environment tells you that singing will not put bread on the table,? Imbrailo says.

However, he went on to study music at Potchefstroom, and opera under Ryland Davies at the Royal College of Music in London.

In September 2006 he joined the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, making his debut as Morales in Bizet?s Carmen in December that year.

Home sweet home

Imbrailo lives in London with his wife, but he has fond memories of the country he grew up in.

?I miss the space and the quiet; in London there?s always a buzz,? Imbrailo says.

His fondest memories were formed through the ?boyish time? he spent in the Drakensberg. Imbrailo?s gentle, lilting voice reaches a crescendo when he reminisces how ?we were allowed to roam free and camp out at night?.

Imbrailo also loved sport at school. He once told his conductor that he had a cold so that he could play in a timeclashing rugby match.

?I would cancel a concert if I could watch rugby,? Imbrailo says.

He can watch his Western Province team play from London, but the first-world environment does have its restrictions.

?I miss the feeling that there?s always room for initiative, especially in music and the arts. In South Africa, everything goes. I think South Africans tend to think that anything?s possible.? Imbrailo says.

The Young Artist Award provides him with ?a back foot in the door to perform back home?, as well as an opportunity to see his South African family.

?God, wife and family? are the three things most important to Imbrailo.

?Music is a job. It?s not a life, it?s a job,? he says. ?It should never have a negative influence on the other three.?

With a fresh face and a wry, Mona Lisa-esque smile, Imbrailo avoids eye contact with the enchanted audience, looking vaguely heavenwards to the God that gave him his talent ? Or perhaps his glazed eyes were secretly picturing himself in khaki shorts, holding a rugby ball.