composer and conductor
biography & audio samples
BONGANI NDODANA-BREEN
Bongani Ndodana-Breen’s music has been performed by the Belgian National Orchestra, Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, Natal Philharmonic, New York City’s Vox Vocal Ensemble, Cape Town City Ballet, Ensemble Noir, Ensemble Cosi Facciamo Munich, Chicago’s Cube Ensemble, Ossia Ensemble and the choir of Wadham College Oxford University. He currently directs the Toronto-based new music group Ensemble Noir –which was the first Canadian classical music ensemble to do an extensive tour of Africa to Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa in 2003
According to the New York Times his “delicately made music - airy, spacious, terribly complex but never convoluted - has a lot to teach the Western wizards of metric modulation and layered rhythms about grace and balance. He reminds us that most of our notions about musical motion in the last century came in their roundabout way from Africa or Southeast Asia in the first place, and that Africans tend to do it better than we do”.
Ndodana-Breen was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music, in 1998, one of South Africa’s most prestigious arts prizes. This award led to a commission for his opera-oratorio Uhambo that he conducted at South Africa’s National Arts Festival. According to Canada’s Globe and Mail “He seems to be just as interested in giving pleasure as in opening people’s minds… which makes him doubly a novelty on the Toronto New Music scene” (Globe and Mail, Nov 2001).
Following the premiere his African Kaddish for large orchestra, led by German conductor Bernhard Gueller, Ndodana-Breen was described as “a wonder boy composer with a natural gift second to none” by the Mail and Guardian (Johannesburg, July 2001). Ndodana-Breen is a passionate advocate for the music of our time. His own music is influenced by the lyricism and rhythms of Africa, blended with an eclectic, post-modern approach to contemporary music. The Indianapolis Star called his Symphony No. 2 “epic music” and Paula Citron of Toronto’s Classical 96 FM described Ndodana’s dance music as “Absolutely fascinating.” The New York Times adds Ndodana-Breen “is not a raw talent; he is a talent and, at 31, possesses a clear and gentle voice of his own”.
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