Wednesday, January 7, 2009

SS 2009 Course: A-Capella Music of South Africa

Course 194
Date: Friday 23 January
Time: 1.00 pm
Full Price: R54,00 Staff: R27,00 Reduced: R14,00
**Tickets are on sale at the door only if seats are available: R60,00; staff & reduced (on production of cards): R32,00.

A-Cappella Music of South Africa: ‘A Nation Scored in Four Parts’
Presented by
Neo Muyanga, composer and musician

Vocal music accompanied South Africa as the nation shaped itself into our fledgling democracy. This lunch-time lecture will argue that there are two reasons why the a-cappella music of our past is so beloved internationally and locally: while the world outside admired how our communal singing gave ‘voice’ to our struggles against colonialism and apartheid, choral singing was regarded locally not only as a way to vent frustration and despair about our political situation but also as a means of expressing sophistication, erudition and ‘cool’.

A number of South Africa’s SADC neighbours adopted Nkosi sikelel’ i-Africa (written by Enoch Sontonga in 1897), each fashioning the famous melody into its own song of patria. The 1960s saw Miriam Makeba become the first world superstar from Africa, following the release of the collaborative album An Evening with Belafonte and Makeba, featuring a number of a-cappella struggle songs. More recently, in 2008, the ‘scathamiya’ supergroup Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Soweto Gospel Choir received Grammy awards in the USA. Yet we seldom hear their music on South African radio stations and their videos are not on high rotation on our TV channels.

This lecture will ask why this is so. It will consider whether South Africans have lost interest in our vocal music and whether it still has the potential to serve as a mirror reflecting our current socio-political condition.

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