US orchestra to spread Ubuntu
THE Minnesota Orchestra is performing Dr Bongani Ndodana-Breen’s Harmonia Ubuntu in Minnesota in the US this month.
South Africans will experience Harmonia Ubuntu next month when the orchestra embarks on a five city tour – Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg and at the iconic Regina Mundi Roman Catholic Church in Soweto.
The soloist for Harmonia Ubuntu in South Africa is soprano, Goitsemang Oniccah Lehobye. For the concert in the US and tour in SA, the conductor is Osmo Vänskä – musical director of the orchestra.
A prolific and innovative classical music composer, Ndodana-Breen (he has a PhD in music composition from Rhodes University) lives in Cape Town but travels extensively – as his new compositions are unveiled.
International commissions include Wigmore Hall, Vancouver Recital Society, Madam Walker Theatre Indianapolis, the Emancipation Festival of Trinidad and Tobago, Hong Kong Arts Festival, Luminato Festival Toronto, Haydn Festspiele Eisenstadt, and now the Minnesota Orchestra is playing his much anticipated Harmonia Ubuntu.
How did this commission for The Minnesota Orchestra come about?
It came as a wonderful surprise. I was approached by e-mail by Classical Movements – the American agency organising the Minnesota Orchestra tour to South Africa. I was told the conductor Osmo Vänskä took interest in some of my work and chose me from a shortlist of South African composers.
I had a chat with folk from Classical Movements about what they and the Minnesota Orchestra were trying to achieve with the tour and we were on the same page.
It is a wonderful project to be involved with and a rare honour for a South African composer to work with such an internationally regarded, Grammy award-winning orchestra. I am big fan of Sibelius’s music – a specialty of Osmo Vänskä.
Can you give us insights into ‘Harmonia Ubuntu’?
Nelson Mandela was far more than a statesman, an exemplar of the African values that underpin the Nguni concept of “ubuntu”: the knowledge that one’s humanity is tied to the humanity of others or humanity towards others.
The harmony referenced in the title has the obvious musical connotations and it can be argued that “ubuntu” is a form of harmony in the context of how we relate with fellow human beings. Ubuntu is the Nguni Bantu philosophy that underpins Mandela’s writings and his beliefs, and was also made famous by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
What musical motifs, genres and reference are you bringing into the piece?
The musical ideas that frame this work are largely derived from the musical universe of Southern Africa. For example, the musical language is influenced by modes which are often associated with the Xhosa hexatonic scale.
This is a six-note scale from the overtones created by musical bows (mrhube, uhadi) used over centuries by the Xhosa people.
Aspects of the interlocking patterns in Harmonia Ubuntu also looked beyond South Africa’s political borders, to the Shona people of what is now Zimbabwe.
The Minnesota Orchestra Cape Town tour date: Friday, August 10, 8pm, city hall. Tickets R100 to R600. Bookings through Computicket.