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composer and conductor |
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Homage
to the father of the Festival
Daily Dispatch, East London, So.Africa Monday June 29, 1998 THE ONE is a mere 22 years old, who as a young Eastern Cape boy, dreamt about winning the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music; the other recently celebrated his 80th birthday and is considered "the father of the Festival". The opera-oratorio Uhambo -- the Pilgrimage, which will premiere at the Grahamstown Festival is a showcase for the composing talents of Bongani Ndodana and pays homage to renowned writer and poet Professor Guy Butler. Uhambo, based on Butler's narrative poem Pilgrimage to Dias Cross, will be conducted by Ndodana with the Cape Town Opera Orchestra, soloists, the DSG Choir, an imbhongi (praise singer) and the American dancer Germaul Barnes. According to Ndodana, Butler's poem is "a pilgrimage into our past, conjuring up our ancestors and their collective wisdom to make sense of a senseless epidemic of carnage and brutal totalitarianism ripping the country apart". "The story lends itself to a musical setting, not only because of Butler's eloquent poetical cadences and his attention to metre, but also because of his use of actual songs. Musically Uhambo is an eclectic work that blends my re-creation of styles to suit characterisation and the dramatic content of the piece. What unifies the work is a core 'African accent' in the musical language, and the instruments are used in ways which recreate sounds that resemble a kora or uhadi or djembe." Apart from Uhambo -- The Pilgrimage on July 7 in the Monument Theatre, Ndodana will also conduct a free concert with the Cape Town Opera Orchestra on July 8 at 11h30 in the St Andrew's College Chapel, including Summa (Arvo Part), Brandenburg No 3 (Bach) and Symphony No 1 Heroes (Ndodana). Ndodana, born in Queenstown, began writing his first compositions while still a pupil at St Andrew's College in Grahamstown. There he composed music for the chapel choirs and resident ensembles, including The College Overture for symphonic wind orchestra which won first prize in a composition competition. He received a SAMRO undergraduate bursary to study music at Rhodes University, where he was awarded Academic Half Colours for his work, and the Rupert Teacher's Foundation Prize for a distinction in Piano Teaching Methods and distinctions in other subjects. After a concert of his chamber works at the 1995 festival, he was awarded a Senior Music bursary by the Foundation for the Creative Arts to study composition with Roelof Temmingh at the Conservatoire of Music at the University of Stellenbosh in 1996. In 1997 he was commissioned to write an organ work for Gerrit Jordaan for his 1998 European tour; his chamber opera Temba and Seliba (libretto by Gwyneth Lloyd) was performed by Co-Opera on the Festival fringe; he wrote the score for the ballet Episodes -- performed by the Cape Town City Ballet; and he trained and conducted members of Capab Opera in a showcase of excerpts from a work in progress, Broken String (libretto by Michael Williams). Ndodana is currently working overseas, and his string quartet The Sun, the Moon and the Rain had its world premiere at the Chicago Cultural Centre in November last year. The Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, in association with the Madame Walker Theatre, have recently commissioned him for a new full length symphony Umuntu Wa Buntu (Man of the People), which will premiere on July 24. Ndodana is also collaborating, as composer and conductor, with choreographer Ronald Taylor of the Candoulay Dance Company in Toronto on a work entitled Mass for their fifth anniversary. Already spreading his
wings far afield, festivalgoers cannot afford to miss Ndodana's South African
appearance with a work entrenched in a region which is his spiritual home.
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