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Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS): News 2011

Seminar in honour of Michael Blake's 60th birthday

         
  Blake Seminar 29 October 2011 - Jannasch Hall - Konservatorium
  
  Programme  
  9:00 Stephanus Muller Miniature blueprints, spider stratagems: a Michael Blake retrospective at 60  
  9:40 Jean-Pierre de la Porte Permeability, Power and Scale: Michael Blake’s Small Worlds  
  10:20 George King Toxic Triads, or Breaking Through to Composition: Michael Blake and Composition Studies at Unisa  
  11:00 Tea/Coffee  
  11:30 Christine Lucia newmusic@michaelblake.co.za  
  12:10 Paul Hanmer Michael Blake, composer and instructor  
  12:50 Aryan Kaganof Film Premiere: ‘Carpet of Memory’ by Aryan Kaganof
Collaboration and Creativity, and the Nature of the Creative Process		  
  13:30 Closing Statement and thanks (Mareli Stolp, on behalf of DOMUS)  
         

Graham Newcater concert and exhibition at Stellenbosch University

Graham Newcater presentation

CD recording featuring Tete Mbambisa

Tete Mbambisa is considered one of the great figures of South African jazz. This gifted composer, pianist and vocalist has been active in the South African jazz world since the 1950’s, and is still active today. He has collaborated with jazz legends such as Zim Ngqawana, Herbie Tsoaeli, Feya Faku, Sylvia Mdunyelwa and Ezra Ngcukana.

DOMUS, in the spirit of promoting music in South Africa and Africa through strategic projects of research, publication, performance and recordings, financially supported the recording of Tete Mbambisa’s first solo CD, which will be launched in July 2011. The album is produced by Dr. Jonathan Eato of the University of York in the United Kingdom.

More on the 2012 launch of the Black Heroes: Tete Mbambisa CD here.

(May 2011)

DVD recording for DOMUS, a first

During the screening of The Uprising of Hangberg, a film by Aryan Kaganof and Dylan Valley:

On 21 September 2010, Cape Town Metro Police officers entered the Hangberg township in Hout Bay in the Western Cape, to forcibly remove several township residents and destroy their homes that were built above the determined firebreak. Aryan Kaganof and Dylan Valley created the documentary film, The Uprising of Hangberg, in response to the events of that day.

   

DOMUS presented a screening of the film on 2 November 2010, at Amazink Restaurant in Kayamandi, Stellenbosch. The screening was well-received, and a lively and fruitful discussion followed between members of the public, and also members of the Hangberg community that were in attendance.

   

In the spirit of DOMUS’s involvement with, and promotion of different expressive cultures, a financial contribution was made to enable the local Hangberg reggae group Blaze to record a DVD at Milestone Studios in Cape Town.

   

These images are taken from the DVD recording by Blaze.

   

(May 2011 )

Collaboration between DOMUS and Makerere University, Uganda

During a visit by Professor Sylvia Nannyonga-Tamusuza in April 2011, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between DOMUS and the Makerere University Klaus Wachsmann Music Archive (MAKWAMA) in Uganda. This agreement originated from the interest in collaboration between institutions for promoting research potential and activities in Africa. This agreement assumes collaboration on archival and academic grounds in the following manner:

  • Collaboration about the co-storing and backups of physical and digital collections;
  • Collaboration on grant raising for joint and individual projects;
  • Joint research projects of staff and postgraduate students;
  • Joint publication projects;
  • Training and knowledge sharing of research that taps from the archive as supporting entity for research;
  • Exchange of students for study opportunities;
  • Theoretical exchange on issues like repatriation and the ethics of public access to culturally sensitive materials;
  • Collaboration with digitization projects.

First composition commission for DOMUS

Kodering - - Music by Dimitri Voudouris - - Film by Aryan Kaganof

Concept: Mareli Stolp


One of the first projects of its kind in South Africa, Kodering for amplified piano and film, was commissioned by DOMUS in January 2011. This project, conceived by Mareli Stolp and supported by visual artist and filmmaker Aryan Kaganof and composer Dimitri Voudouris, takes the form of a live performance combining composed music, visual material and improvisation. Voudouris’s composition, based on film material created by Kaganof, will be performed in July 2011 for the first time by pianist Mareli Stolp. The performance will be an interactive exploration of the possibilities for intermediality in the collaborative connection between filmed material and instrumental composition, and improvisation and interactive responsiveness between pianist and filmmaker. In the live performance, Kaganof will project sections of the filmed material without previously determining the sequence. In turn, the pianist will respond with Voudouris’s composed material, again in an improvisatory manner not previously determined, and with the musical material presented in the sequence that the pianist judges to be most effective in response to the visual material in that moment.

(Mareli Stolp, April 2011)

Tribute to composer Hubert du Plessis

A tribute to the life and work of Hubert du Plessis (1922 – 2011) will be presented by the Department of Music on Monday 28th March from 16:00 – 17:30 in the Fismer Hall, Stellenbosch Konservatorium. Dr. du Plessis, a member of the Department’s staff from 1958 until his retirement in 1982, passed away on 12 March 2011. Proff. Hans Roosenschoon and Izak Grové will present the tribute, which will include a number of the composer’s works, some of which will be performed by staff and students of the Department of Music.

Please note this replaces the scheduled Colloquium featuring Avril Kinsey which will now take place in the 2nd semester.

For further information please contact Louise Howlett at 021 808 2358 or howlett@sun.ac.za

‘n Huldeblyk aan Hubert du Plessis word op Maandag 28 Maart, 16:00 – 17:30 in die Fismersaal, Konservatorium deur die Departement Musiek aangebied. Dr. du Plessis was vanaf 1958 tot met sy aftrede in 1982 as dosent aan die Departement verbonde. Proff. Hans Roosenschoon en Izak Grové sal ‘n waardering van die lewe en werk van een van Suid-Afrika se vooraanstaande komponiste lewer, terwyl ander personeellede en studente van sy musiek sal uitvoer.

Let wel dat hierdie geleentheid die geskeduleerde Colloquium met Avril Kinsey sal vervang. Sy sal dan in die tweede semester optree.

Vir verdere inligting skakel Louise Howlett by 021 808 2358 of howlett@sun.ac.za

(March 2011)

AK 47 film festival at Stellenbosch 'Woordfees'

This film festival comprises a selection of films by filmmaker, writer and artist, Aryan Kaganof and focuses on the role of music in his work. As part of the Woordfees, DOMUS will showcase twenty-one of Kaganof’s short- and full-length films which include documentaries on music genres such as kwaito, jazz and blues as well as films that explore the interaction between music, image and text. The festival is curated by Lizabé Lambrechts.

The film festival is taking place from 7-11 March in Stellenbosch and Kayamandi (5 Ryneveld Restaurant, Ryneveld Street, Stellenbosch and AmaZink Eatery, Kayamandi).

As a writer, visual artists and filmmaker, Aryan Kaganof will also be discussing his work with Christo Doherty (head of the Wits Arts School) in terms of “Medium Specificity”, exploring how content is influenced and potentially altered by different mediums. This conversation will take place on 7 March at 14:00 in the Boektent, Stellenbosch.

Programme (daily 18:30)

Monday, 7 March: DEATH AND SENSUALITY Stellenbosch
  Reverie (12min)
SMS Sugar Man (80min)
At last I’m free (5min)		  
Tuesday, 8 March: THE BODY POLITIC Kayamandi
  A perfect day (3min)
Sharp Sharp! The Kwaito story (25min)
Giant Steps (52min)		  
Wednesday, 9 March: VIRULENT NIHILISM Stellenbosch
  Signal to noise (9min)
Kraftmusichall (10min)
Herman Hesse, flying (5min)
The Exhibition of Vandalizim (47min)		  
Thursday, 10 March: LAMENTATIONS Kayamandi
  Blue notes for Bra’ Geoff (60min)
Diabelli Variation XXXIII (5min)
Western 4.33 (32min)		  
Friday, 11 March: THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE Stellenbosch
  The legendary Syd Kitchen in "G-string blues" (32min)
The Portrait of a Lady (5min)
A Willing Suspension of Disbelief (3min)
Click Here to Unsubscribe (32min)		  


(February 2011)

Boeremusiekgilde photographs by Niklas Zimmer

     

This collection of photographs, created by Niklas Zimmer, was commissioned by Willemien Froneman as an aesthetic ethnography of the 21st anniversary celebrations of the Boeremusiekgilde held in October 2010 at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. The initial brief was centred on the Bakhtinian notion of the carnivalesque and the photographer tasked with creating images that portrayed the juxtaposition of pleasure and duty at the event.

Although the brief was open to interpretation, ‘pleasure’ was loosely defined in terms of the materiality of the body and the body in movement: excess, immediacy, dancing, eating and drinking, laughter, bingeing, sensuality and eroticism. ‘Duty’, in turn, denoted the order imposed by the official discourses of the organisation, evident in readings from the Bible, uniforms and other organisational paraphernalia.

It was decided to capture images of ‘duty’ in black and white film, as an additional aesthetic intervention. The images were created over the course of three days, with the photographer joining a group of musicians on a bus journey from Cape Town to Pretoria.

(Willemien Froneman, February 2011)
   
     
   
     
   
     
   
     
   
     

Kaganof collection for DOMUS

The contribution of Aryan Kaganof to the cultural realm of South Africa proceeds on many levels and in several different mediums. He is a poet, writer of novels, filmmaker and fine artist, as well as the administrator of the Kagablog, a prominent Web site where various types of social and cultural discourse are collected, distributed and expounded upon.

Kaganof’s high level of involvement with a huge variety of South African art forms and discursive mediums is contained in the collection of data he has generously donated to the DOMUS archive. Kaganof’s work is specifically relevant to music discourse, as is revealed by his films on music-related topics such as The Legendary Syd Kitchen, Blues on a G-String, Reverie and Sharp Sharp: The Kwaito Story.

(January 2011)

Michael Blake collection now for DOMUS

 

Michael Blake’s importance as a South African composer derives from a number of factors. His music is representative of an experimental/minimalist aesthetic that found early expression in the music of the internationally celebrated South African composer Kevin Volans, and of which Blake is now (and has been for a considerable time) the foremost South African exponent. He has consistently probed the connections between experimentalism as a tradition, minimalism and African structures, rhythms and pitch material. Among the many composers who have ventured along this path since the late 1970s, Blake’s interest in these connections counts as among the most sustained, compelling and sophisticated. In the Cambridge History of Twentieth-century Music, Martin Scherzinger described this music as ‘understated translations of African music into Western idioms [that] deftly negotiate the borderline between quotation and abstraction, and, in the process interrogate the opposition between the two’. Blake has now produced work in every medium – stage, orchestral, chamber, keyboard, instrumental and vocal (solo and choral). He has worked in film and dance and in 2009 he completed the draft of an Afrikaans digital opera in seven scenes, Searching for Salome, based on Etienne Leroux’s 1962 novel Sewe Dae by die Silbersteins.

Blake has, since his return to South Africa in 1997 after a prolonged stay in the UK, become the most important single organizational figure in shaping the future of New Music in South Africa. This he has done by the creation of NewMusicSA, a South African section of the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1999, the organization of the annual NewMusic Indaba (New Music Festivals) and the launch of the NewMusicSA Bulletin, an annual publication dedicated to writing about New Music in South Africa. He has also, through the composition workshops connected to the NewMusic Indaba, contributed significantly to renewing international links with the international New Music fraternity and to acknowledging and institutionally giving recognition to Black choral music as a serious contemporary compositional practice. His contribution in this regard is nothing short of visionary.

Dr. Blake has been commissioned by prominent international ensembles and his music has received significant international premiers. Most notably, the Fitzwilliam String Quartet recently commissioned his String Quartet No 4, extending a long creative relationship between this highly regarded quartet and the composer. Important CD recordings of his music include the Complete Solo Piano Music of Michael Blake 1994-2004 (recorded by Jill Richards) and the String Quartet No. 3 by the Nightingale String Quartet on the Bow Project CD (2010). The latter deserves special mention, because it illustrates the importance of Blake’s contribution to the future of New Music in South Africa. Initiated in 1999, the Bow Project aimed to give up to twenty composers an opportunity to study, reimagining and recompose music from the recorded performances of the Xhosa bow player Nofinishi Dywili. As a musical vision of how South African composition could evolve as an indigenous practice, this project has few if any rivals. It constitutes an audacious collective aesthetic experiment that produced remarkable music.

Although first and foremost a composer, Michael Blake has published important academic writing in reputable journals. This includes publications in accredited journals like SAMUS (South African Music Studies) and the international journals Fontes Artis Musicae and Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.

 (January 2011)

Colloquia at Stellenbosch University Music Department

 

Konservatorium, Jannasch Hall
Mondays 15:30-17:00

The Department of Music presents a weekly academic presentation and discussion in the form of the Departmental Colloquia. These events take place on Mondays from 15:00 to 16:30 in the Jannasch Hall at the Konservatorium. A wide variety of topics will be presented during the first semester, with a diverse cast of local and international speakers. These events are open for attendance by by the university community and general public and you are cordially invited to join us for these discussions on Monday afternoons.

ALL WELCOME TO ATTEND

First Semester Colloquia 2013

4 February

Nicoll Matt in conversation about the choral works of Morten Lauridsen

11 February

Remarks on Ligeti’s Piano Concerto
Dr Ralf Kohler (Stellenbosch University)

18 February

Eoan: Our Story: The process of making a book
Dr Hilde Roos and Wayne Muller (Stellenbosch University)

25 February

Dialogue with German cellist Friedrich Gauwerky

4 March

Contemporary performance practice of art music in South Africa: A practice-based research inquiry
Dr Mareli Stolp (Rhodes University) talks about her PhD dissertation

11 March

Contextual readings of analysis and compositional process in selected works by Arnold van Wyk, 1916-1983
Dr Matildie Thom-Wium (University of the Free State) talks about her PhD dissertation

18 March

Songs from the wood: Environment, sound art, and the Documenta 13
Prof. Markus Böggemann (Universität Kassel)

 

Colloquia 2012

6 February

‘Sing unto the Lord a new song’: Status and identity in synagogue choirs
Dr. Stephen Muir (University of Leeds, UK)

13 February

Lion’s Share: Intellectual Property Rights and the South African Music industry
Prof. Veit Erlmann (Butler School of Music University of Texas at Austin)

20 February

The jazz photography of Basil Breakey
Niklas Zimmer (University of Cape Town)

27 February

Vocal hygiene and voice management
Vanessa Tait-Jones (Stellenbosch University)

5 March

Adorno’s Aesthetics of Music
Dr. Ralf Kohler (Stellenbosch University)

12 March

The South African Jewish Music Archive and a short introduction to Klezmer music
Fay Singer (Cape Town) and Annemie Stimie (University of South Africa)

19 March

Op soek na die stomme JC
Johan Cloete (Cape Town)

26 March

The wild and weird charm of the concertina: Boeremusiek and Blackface Minstrelsy
Willemien Froneman (Stellenbosch University)

16 April

Parading respectability: The Christmas Bands movement in the Western Cape and the constitution of subjectivity
Dr. Sylvia Bruinders (University of Cape Town)

23 April

Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph’s Masada: In the wake of the unspoken cultural alliance
Annemie Stimie (University of South Africa)

30 April

Musiek sonder 'n mark
Louis Heyneman (Head Executive Officer, Cape Philharmonic Orchestra)

7 May

Così fan tutte – Così facciamo: A decade’s journey on the road less travelled
Hans Huyssen (Stellenbosch University)

14 May

Reflections on academic and artistic collaboration: The Boeremusiek project
Willemien Froneman (Stellenbosch University) and Niklas Zimmer (University of Cape Town)

6 August
‘Sterkte’ in Sterkfontein: Towards a composing culture in South Africa
Prof. Michael Blake (Stellenbosch University)

13 August

Second thoughts: On the implications of re-writing
Prof. Christine Lucia (Stellenbosch University)

20 August

Exploring the colonial soundscape: The fifteen Meent Borcherds keyboard pieces
Erik Dippenaar (Royal College of Music, London)

27 August
Ralf Kohler in conversation with composer Theo Herbst.

17 September
Van Bethlehem tot Blaauwbergstrand: Die oue, die nuwe en die eie in Stefans Grové se oeuvre
Prof. Izak Grové

15 October
Sex, lies and a concerto
Prof. Chris Walton

22 October
Archery and cello playing - two sides of the same coin?
Dalena Roux

 

                 
         
  Michael Blake       Erik Dippenaar    

Colloquia 2011

31 January

The concept of ‘racial purity’ in music, discussed in connection with the Nazi exhibition ‘Entartete Musik’, shown at Düsseldorf in 1938
Dr. Albrecht Dümling (Berlin)

7 February

The frog and the nightingale: About very slow and very fast tempi during the 18th century
Willem Kroesbergen (Cape Town)

14 February

HIPP (Historically Informed Performance Practice) after Taruskin
Hans Huyssen (University of Stellenbosch, PhD)

21 February

“52 Niggers” – a word-sound investigation of Julius Eastman's caged negratas followed by a discussion on black composition, institutional racism – compliance and subversion, sex and classical music, history and power
Stacy Hardy and DJ Boeta G (Cape Town)

28 February

Beethoven's Six Cello Sonatas - A modern interpretation inspired by the recommendations of Carl Czerny and the current discourse on historically informed performance practice
Dr. Stewart Young (Cape Town) and Peter Martens (University of Stellenbosch, PhD) in conversation with Prof. Winfried Lüdemann (University of Stellenbosch)

7 March

The Aesthetics of Emergence. Music and Complexity
Prof. Paul Cilliers (University of Stellenbosch)

14 March

The Pan African Space Station – a music space programme by global Africa
Neo Myanga (Cape Town)

28 March

Tribute to Hubert du Plessis

4 April

Afrikaaps – die dokumentêr
Dylan Valley (Cape Town)

11 April

Beethoven, Dedication, and the Piano Sonata Opus 110
Artur Pereira (Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester)

18 April

Die kortstondige raklewe van Anastasia W
Marthinus Basson (University of Stellenbosch), Braam du Toit (Swellendam) and Prof. Marlene van Niekerk (University of Stellenbosch)

28 April

Being Human and being a Musician
Hans Huyssen (University of Stellenbosch, PhD)

9 May

Voice of the piano
Keith Goodwill (Stellenbosch)

18 July

Feedback from the recent SASRIM and IASPM conferences
Chris van Rhyn (PhD): SASRIM feedback
Paula Fourie: IASPM feedback

25 July

Composition students in conversation about their music
Antoni Schonken (MMus, University of Stellenbosch)

1 August

The instrumental cantus firmus compositions by Eustache du Caurroy
Prof. Rebekka Sandmeier (University of Cape Town)

8 August

The dissemination of the Italian guitar repertory in the world
Prof. Giuseppe Ficara (Conservatorio Statale di Musica ‘G. Rossini’ di Pesaro, Italy)

15 August



22 August

All memory is present - The opening of the archive
Craig Matthew and Michael Wilson (Doxa Productions, Cape Town)

29 August

Composition students in conversation about their music
Maretha Hattingh (BMusHons, University of Stellenbosch)
Jan-Hendrik Harley (MMus, University of Stellenbosch)

12 September

Vocal hygiene: The essential guide to vocal health for singers and professional voice users
Vanessa Tait-Jones (Universiteit van Stellenbosch)
Postponed to 2012.

19 September

Melodramatic Possessions: The Flying Dutchman and the Imperial Stage
Prof. James Davies (University of California, Berkeley)

26 September

Focus on Roelof Temmingh
Prof. Roelof Temmingh in gesprek oor eie werk

3 October

'You can't listen alone': On the sociality of listening among South African jazz appreciation societies
Brett Pyper (PhD, New York University and CEO, KKNK)

10 October

Rap and mutations of values in 2000s France: Diam's as an 'unidentified political object'
Prof. Denis-Constant Martin (University of Bordeaux)

17 October

Notes in the margin: Conversation with Jill Richards

24 October

Unfinished symphonies: The art of Bonsai
Prof. Winfried Lüdemann (University of Stellenbosch)

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