composer and conductor
Review by Paul Boekkooi
Cue Guest Writer: July, 1998
Bongani Ndodana, winner of this year's Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music, is probably the foremost black South African musician who will direct the course music will take in the new millennium. Already at the tender age of a mere 22 years, he has established himself in the creative fields of composition, conducting and, most importantly, in musical imagination.
With two symphonies to his credit and now his opera-oratorio Uhambo, which had its premiere last night in the Monument Theatre, one can only hope that he will keep the contact with his roots alive. Dedicated to Professor Guy Butler, the founder of this festival who turned 80 this year, this unusual work is basedon Butler's epic poem, Pilgrimage to Dias Cross.
Incorporated within this poetic space is the role of a praise singer, a dancer and the "great hymn" of the Xhosa prophet, Ntsikana. All this, collectively, brings us a kind of hybrid work, without it ever being sterile. Ndodana, who currently studies in the United States, will have to restrain his self-confessed eclecticism in his musical language, because in Uhambo it somehow diffuses the links between himself as a creative individual and both the soil and soul of Africa.
For everyone in the audience it was a daunting if not impossible task to closely follow Ndodana's line of creativity. One wished that the organisers would follow the secure road of convention around oratorio performances: to supply the audience with the text, and have the auditorium lit up so that everyone can follow what is going on.
Not that the visual elements were unimportant. Apart from the praise singer, it was especially the appearance of the African-American dancer Germaul Barnes, brought here by the troupe Jerit Boys International, which gave this premiere a visual dynamic that was stunning.Barnes danced the interludes which Ndodana incorporated with a bodily grace and fluency that was awe-inspiring. He is a dancer who can twitch a muscle and it will have a ripple effect through the rest of his body. Wallowing in his physique was part of the audience's diversion, but one hoped that they also noticed his fine embodiment of particular African traditional movements.
During the performance many parts seemed to this listener unlinked. It is a work which needs stronger leitmotivs to bind it together. Also the absence of particular African instruments was striking. One doesn't necessary await a drum festival here, but would have loved to hear at least some endangered indigenous instruments. Ndodana should be in contact with, for example, the Tracey family and broaden the colouristic scope of his orchestra which, at this stage, is predominantly Western.
But what he did with that orchestra, was often impressive. In the tutti sections the sound was often too forceful, but in the solo writing for French horn, the bassoon and other woodwind instruments, there was an element of Africa to be found which was still lacking in his string writing. At one stage the writing for percussion - especially the snaredrum - was too thick. The children's choir could not be ideally heard above it. But there were many a striking element: the very fine parody of Hail Britannia, and the way he implanted the song Shosholoza into both the melodic and harmonic fabric. Although the three soloists, tenor Ntombizobumo Mboniswa, contralto Miranda Tini and the soprano Makhazonke Mkanazi sang strongly, their diction was to weak to be followed. Their best singing was heard in the a capella section near the end.
Uhambo's ending was very conventional, and the use of the girls chorus (from the local Diocesan School for Girls) sounded still somewhat under-rehearsed. Ndodana should strive towards a more epic dimension in Uhambo - something which can be readily achieved when he reappraises it in a couple of years from now. Music carrying with it an ever-growing South African identity, has been blessed by the presence of Bongani Ndodana. But we need him HERE if this ongoing process is to thrive into something where cross-pollination comes naturally.
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