Africa Re-imagined, a tribute to Nelson Mandela, saw the performance of new classical music highlighting the unique beauty that Africa has to offer.
New music inspired by ancient and traditional African instruments enthralled guests at the Iziko Museum in Cape Town on Africa Day.
Ncebakazi Mnukwana plays the uhadi, Xhosa Bow player and her voice goes under music.
“The instrument I am playing is an instrument that is inherent from specifically the San in Southern Africa. And it is an instrument that is an adapted hunting bow with a calabash that people generally keep and ferment milk in Iselwa. And this calabash then creates this guarded sound and the resonance.”
The traditional Xhosa bow produces only two notes, but it creates an atmospheric symphony.
Mnukwana, a researcher of Nguni bow music, is accompanied by an unlikely instrument – the Cello, played by composer and academic, Thokozani Mhlambi.
The duet speaks to the universal language that is music.
Cellist Dr. Thokozani Mhlambi says:”Revisiting the archive and finding sources of inspiration from the archive that allow us to speak as who we are today.”
Former New York based Metropolitan Opera soprano, Amanda Osorio now resides in South Africa. Along with pianist Adebola Ola they performed six Nigerian folk songs.
Osorio says:”The songs are by Akin Euba and they are about Yoruba village life so like many great Western classical composers before him he took the folk songs of his home and he put them into a Western classical format and there are six of them so they’re all different.”
The concert is a collaboration between the Africa Arts Group, the Western Cape government and Iziko Museums of South Africa.
Iziko Museums of South Africa Dr. Bongani Ndhlovu says:”This Africa Day celebration is an opportunity for us to renew our commitment to rebuilding our nation, to be reminded of what unites us and what confronts us and that which continues to divide us.”
Inspired by the unique richness of traditional African music, Martin Scherzinger composed ‘What is the Grass’ in honour of Nelson Mandela.
“We often hear sort of cliché descriptions of African music that it’s very rhythmic. What I want to do is actually kind of simplify the music and in some sense underplay the rhythm.”
Music inspired by the old reworked, re-imagined. And in it there are no boundaries or countries, just infinite possibilities.
