NEW MUSIC INDABA 2009

• Chair
  Cameron Harris
  
• Committee member
  Clare Loveday
  
• Committee member
  Lloyd Prince
  
• Committee member
  Chris van Rhyn
  

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NEW MUSIC INDABA 2009

Fresh Connections, the 2009 New Music Indaba, highlights two of southern Africa's finest composers: We mark the centenary of celebrated choral and instrumental composer Michael Moerane and the sixtieth birthday year of internationally acclaimed composer Kevin Volans with The Chamber Choir of South Africa, directed by Michael Dingaan and instrumental concerts by Jill Richards, Waldo Alexander and The Chamber Music Company of London with guest singers Siyabonga Maqungo and Nombuso Ndlandla.

The 'Growing Composers' workshops continue this year and their focus will be the combination of voice and instruments. We will be working on a wide variety of pieces for soprano and/or tenor voice and piano trio by young and emerging composers.

Please check back with us soon by visiting this page over the next few weeks to learn of the latest news and concert details as we draw closer to the festival.

We hope to see you next month!

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COMPOSERS' WORKSHOP INVITATION

Composers who would like to participate in the Indaba workshops should kindly download the following PDF documents:

• Composers' Invitation Letter (329 KB)
• Composers' Application Form (246 KB)

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SPONSORS

NewMusicSA acknowledges the kind support of:

• SAMRO Endowment for the National Arts
• Business and Arts South Africa
• UNISA Music Foundation
• Department of Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology, UNISA
• The National Arts Council
• Classic FM

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Clockwise, from top left: Jonathan Truscott of the Chamber Music Company | Ben Hess of the Chamber Music Company | Waldo Alexander | Michael Dingaan | Hannes Taljaard | Jürgen Bräuninger | Jill Richards | Mark Troop of the Chamber Music Company.

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COMPOSERS & PERFORMERS

Composers and performers featured in concerts, workshops and masterclasses include:

Performers

• Waldo Alexander (ZA) (bio)
• The Chamber Choir of South Africa (ZA) (bio)
  Conducted by Michael Dingaan (ZA) (bio)
• The Chamber Music Company (GB) info (bio)
• Melissa Gerber (ZA) (bio)
• Malané Hofmeyr-Burger (ZA) (bio)
• Paul Madibeng (ZA)
• Siyabonga Maqungo (ZA)
• Nombuso Ndlandla (ZA)
• Jill Richards (ZA) info (bio)
• Hanli Stapela (ZA) (bio)

Resident Composers

• Jürgen Bräuninger (DE/ZA) info (bio)
• Hannes Taljaard (ZA) (bio)

Composers

• Michael Blake (ZA) info (bio)
• Gaetano Donizetti (IT)
• George Frideric Handel (DE/GB)
• Joseph Haydn (AT)
• Zoltán Kodály (HU)
• Morten Lauridsen (US) info (bio)
• David Matthews (GB) (bio)
• Nicholas Maw (GB/US) (bio)
• Felix Mendelssohn (DE)
• Michael Mosoeu Moerane (LS/ZA) (bio)
• Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa (ZA) (bio)
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (AT)
• Richard Pantcheff (GB/ZA) (bio)
• Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla (AR) info (bio)
• Giacomo Puccini (IT)
• Franz Schubert (AT)
• Dmitri Shostakovich (RU)
• James Tenney (CA/US) (bio)
• Kevin Volans (ZA) info (bio)
• Stevie Wonder (US) info

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THE CHAMBER MUSIC COMPANY

The Chamber Music Company, founded by Mark Troop in 1986, will be giving masterclasses and performing concerts throughout the 2009 New Music Indaba. The group has made its name as one of the most innovative and imaginative groups in the UK.

Initially a piano trio plus singer Patricia Rozario, CMC is both vocal and instrumental, adding not only different instrumentalists where appropriate, but in seeking new performance styles for classical music. CMC gives straight classical concerts but also music theatre and cabaret, discovers both Old and New music, fuses ethnic and classical. We have explored Tango in terms of modern Argentine music and charted parallels between war-torn Mexico and Northern Ireland. Much of our recent work has been contemporary, framed by imaginative excursions into the past and sideways into other cultures — Second Glance (New Music), The Latin American Roadshow (a multi-genre celebration), The CMC Rare Music Series (rediscovery), and Deconstructing The Trout (updating tradition).

CMC believes that standard and contemporary repertoire are part of the same living tradition, and that both have their future within the overall perspective of world music traditions. CMC draws connections between disparate music styles, integrating them into coherent performance. We are passionate about new music and aim to commission repertoire, not premières.

The Chamber Music Company presently comprises:

• Mark Troop
• Jonathan Truscott
• Ben Hess

Mark Troop
Piano/artistic director

Mark Troop, pianist, broadcaster and writer, is the founder of The Chamber Music Company; a group devoted to creative performance of all types of music. Festival appearances: City of London, Warwick, and Norfolk and Norwich; Mark Troop with cellist Matthew Barley founded the CMC Summer Solstice, bringing together Classical and Jazz in a unique set up, creating "The Ronnie Scotts of Classical Music" (The Guardian).

For BBC Radio 3 Mark Troop & CMC created a special three-part Latin American series relating the history and literature of Latin America to its music.

Mark Troop has set up several British Council tours, to India (three times), Spain (twice) and Latin America, including concerts and educational work.

Mark Troop has created two new London based events: the CMC Rare Music Series, which explores neglected Classical repertory, and The Latin American Roadshow, a new multi-arts Festival dedicated to the culture of Latin America.

In spring 2006 he inaugurated his new Second Glance Festival in London, bringing four concerts of selected new music to a wider audience. The festival ran again in 2007 and will expand this year to include a linked 3 week tour of South Africa.

Future events include a third Latin American Roadshow, a new interactive festival — The Far East Roadshow — inaugurating at Asia House in spring 2009, a special Chinese one day festival Inspired by China to be featured in the China Now Festival 2008, his cabaret show I'm a Stranger Here Myself currently touring Germany since being on the Edinburgh Fringe. In development: Jean-Henri Blumen's The Dream Peddler; China's greatest love story — Yang Guifei; Shanghai Cabaret

Mark Troop taught at the Guildhall School of Music for two decades, and still teaches at Dartington International Summer School and St Paul's Boys' School. As a writer he has been published in Musical Opinion, Piano and Musical Performance.

Jonathan Truscott
Violin

After studying violin with Itzhak Rashkovsky and Esta Katona at Trinity College London, Jonathan Truscott continued studies in Romania with Ferdinand Kozak, where he also worked professionally with the Tirgu-Mures State Orchestra. During this time he performed throughout much of Eastern and Central Europe, followed by some shows in Holland. Since returning to the UK in 1995, Jonathan has developed a diverse career performing in various orchestras, as a session violinist, for many films and as a chamber musician. He regularly tours both the UK and Europe with the London Eurythmy dance group.

Ben Hess
Cello

Ben Hess trained at Trinity College of Music, where he was awarded first prize for Solo String Playing, and the Royal Northern College of Music, where he was taught by Emma Ferrand and Steven Doane. Ben performs as a soloist and chamber musician. He also works with theatre and dance companies, such as the Royal Shakespeare Company and Chichester Festival Theatre. He has toured Europe and Scandinavia, performing solo repertoire including Bach and Britten and recently he was in the West End, performing the award winning "Sunday in the Park with George".

Further info:
www.chambermusiccompany.com

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DIRECTIONS TO VENUES

Main Unisa Campus

Dr Miriam Makeba theatre is at the rear of Theo van Wijk Building, Unisa Main Campus, Preller Street. Theo van Wijk Building is the first building on the left as you arrive on main campus at the top of the hill. The theatre has its own entrance at the rear or you can enter through the main entrance of the building and the security guards will direct you to the venue on request.

Please see Main and Sunnyside Unisa Campuses map below.

Sunnyside Unisa Campus

Unisa Sunnyside Concert Hall can be accessed from either Rissik or Walker Streets.

Please see Sunnyside Unisa Campus map below.

Description of maps, left to right: Map to MAIN and SUNNYSIDE Unisa campuses Map of the SUNNYSIDE Unisa campus, showing venues

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PROGRAMME

Full notes on performers, composers, and works will be available at Indaba events.

Programmes and artists subject to change.

Booking: Tickets available at the door or call 084 020-5465 for advance booking.

Programme navigation:

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Day 1
Thursday 1 October

JILL RICHARDS AND WALDO ALEXANDER IN CONCERT

19h30 | Sunnyside Concert Hall

DRINKS INCLUDED IN THE ADMISSION PRICE and served after the concert courtesy of Unisa Department of Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology

— Short interval —

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Day 2
Friday 2 October

CHAMBER MUSIC COMPANY LUNCHTIME CONCERT

12h00 | Sunnyside Concert Hall

Repertoire also to include pieces from the Growing Composers Workshops.

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Day 3
Saturday 3 October

CHAMBER CHOIR OF SOUTH AFRICA DIRECTED BY MICHAEL DINGAAN

15h00 | Dr Miriam Makeba Theatre, Unisa Main Campus

It is the centenary of Moerane's birth and the bicentenary of Haydn's death. The inclusion of these composers marks these anniversaries.

THE CHAMBER MUSIC COMPANY: LATE EDITION

20h00 | Dr Miriam Makeba Theatre, Unisa Main Campus

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Day 4
Sunday 4 October

FINAL CONCERT: THE CHAMBER MUSIC COMPANY

13h30 | Dr Miriam Makeba Theatre, Unisa Main Campus

Repertoire also to include pieces from the Growing Composers Workshops.

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BIOGRAPHIES

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Waldo Alexander

Waldo has enjoyed a versatile and exciting career in the classical and contemporary fields of music. In 2002 he became a founding member of the Sontonga Quartet, which toured extensively both locally and internationally. The quartet was fortunate to work and collaborate with many prominent South African and international artists, and provided a means for local composers to have their works performed regularly. Having a great appreciation for the value and significance of South African music, Waldo continues to work with local composers and musicians.

In addition to his career in the classical domain, Waldo also extends his efforts towards other popular styles, from pop and rock n' roll to jazz, trance and hip-hop. These explorations have led to several collaborations with some of South Africa's most prominent artists and bands, including Karen Zoid, Vicky Sampson and Taxi Violence, to name but a few.

Waldo holds a BMus degree for the University of Cape Town, and is currently enrolled for a Master's degree in chamber music and solo performance at the same university. Waldo plays on a fine Italian violin, which is on generous loan from the Lindbergh Arts Foundation.

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Michael Blake

Michael Blake holds degrees from Wits (BMus) and Rhodes Universities (PhD) in South Africa and Goldsmiths College London (MMus). He was based in London from 1977-1997, where he founded and directed the ensemble London New Music and worked as a freelance composer and pianist. After returning to South Africa in 1998 he taught composition at Rhodes University, founded the ISCM South African Section and established the annual New Music Indaba in Grahamstown which he directed from 2000-2006. His output, more than 100 compositions to date, includes an opera, orchestral and chamber music, piano and other keyboard music, choral music, multimedia pieces and film music. Let us run out of the rain is performed regularly by percussion quartets and piano duos throughout the world, and was recorded by Ensemble Bash and released on CD in 2002; String Quartet No 1 (In Memory of William Burton) was premiered and toured internationally by the Fitzwilliam Quartet in his fiftieth birthday year; and he premiered his Quintet for Piano and Strings (Homage to Schumann) with the same ensemble in 2006. His large-scale Piano Sonata (Choral) was premiered by Daan Vandewalle in Ghent in July 2008. Jill Richards' CD recording of his complete piano music was released in November 2008 and has been well-received in the South African media. His most recent work, String Quartet No 3 (Nofinishi), was performed on the Bow Project tour of South Africa, and Aryan Kaganof has made a new film about it. Michael Blake lives in the Republic of Hout Bay and previously lectured at the University of South Africa.

www.michaelblake.co.za

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Jürgen Bräuninger

Jürgen Bräuninger studied in Stuttgart with Ulrich Süsse and Erhard Karkoschka and at San Jose State University with Allen Strange and Dan Wyman. He has been lecturing in composition and music technology at the University of KwZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa since 1985. Besides many works for various ensembles/soloists and electronic media (some in collaboration with Matthew Brubeck, Sazi Dlamini, Feya Faku, Ulrich Süsse, and Dan Wyman as well as poet Ari Sitas), he has also contributed to film scores (e.g. The Lawnmower Man) and a number of Jay Pather's Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre productions (A South African Siddhartha and Ahimsa Ubuntu, among others).

music.ukzn.ac.za/DurbanNoiseWorks8211.aspx

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

The Chamber Choir of South Africa

Founded in 2006, the Chamber Choir of South Africa (CCSA) is a performance driven institution that strives for the highest artistic level and promotes both standard repertoire and lesser-known works. It has been commended for its passionate, committed singing and the ability to switch composer, language and idiom with stylistic conviction.

The CCSA has performed at a wide variety of events including a number of ClassicFM functions and Handel's Messiah with the Chanticleer Singers, the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra and soloists Sibongile Khumalo and Andre Howard. The choir has also shared the stage with the Cenestra Male Voice Choir, Johas Gwangwa and Johnny Mekoa.

On the international stage, the choir has performed with the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church Choir (USA), the Morgenkor Choir of Rudolf Steiner (Norway) and the Bellview Chorus from Washington (USA). In 2009 the choir hosted the Eton College Chapel Choir (UK) under Maestro Ralph Allwood.

The CCSA regularly gives service pro-bono in and around the communities to which it belongs. In this capacity the Choir has helped raise funds for the Anglican Church in Kwa-Thema, an orphanage in Springs and St. Francis Centre in Boksburg.

The membership of the choir is a mixed composition of students and professionals from all parts of South Africa, all these individuals being united in the single purpose of performance excellence. To this effect, some of the choir's members continue to sing in the World Youth Choir, participating in productions conducted by renowned musicians such as Peter Dijkstra and Karl Jenkins as well as taking masterclasses in Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom.

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

The Chamber Music Company

The Chamber Music Company, founded by Mark Troop in 1986, has made its name as one of the most innovative and imaginative groups in the UK. Initially a piano trio plus singer Patricia Rozario, CMC is both vocal and instrumental, adding not only different instrumentalists where appropriate, but in seeking new performance styles for classical music. CMC gives straight classical concerts but also music theatre & cabaret, discovers both Old and New music, fuses ethnic and classical. We have explored Tango in terms of modern Argentine music and charted parallels between war-torn Mexico and Northern Ireland. Much of our recent work has been contemporary, framed by imaginative excursions into the past and sideways into other cultures — Second Glance (New Music), The Latin American Roadshow (a multi-genre celebration), The CMC Rare Music Series (rediscovery), and Deconstructing The Trout (updating tradition). CMC believes that standard and contemporary repertoire are part of the same living tradition, and that both have their future within the overall perspective of world music traditions. CMC draws connections between disparate music styles, integrating them into coherent performance. We are passionate about new music and aim to commission repertoire, not premieres.

www.chambermusiccompany.com

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Michael Dingaan

Michael Dingaan was born and bred in the township of Kwa-Thema outside Springs. He is a former member of the Kwa-Thema Youth Choir led by Ludumo Magangane and the Central Methodist Church Choir conducted by Prince Thethe. In 1992 he joined the State Theatre Opera chorus under the directorship of Mathilda Hornsveld, in 1994 he enrolled at the Potchefstroom University majoring in vocal studies under Prof. Werner Nel, during this period he sang in numerous operas and oratorios accompanied by the National Chamber Orchestra.

On graduating, he was appointed Student-Conductor of the world-renowned Drakensberg Boys Choir, here he received extensive, first-rate training under Christian Ashley-Botha. He began his teaching career in vocal studies at the choir school, producing consistent first-class results. He led for five consecutive years the National Youth Choir of South Africa under the auspices of the choir school.

In 2000 he was appointed Head of Music at the Max Stibbe Waldorf School, where he founded the choirs, Within six months he prepared the technically demanding Magnificat in D by Bach and presented this at Centenary of the Waldorf movement in Basel, Switzerland.

He has been a guest music director for choirs in Norway, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He is the co-founder and artistic director of the Chamber Choir of South Africa. In 2008 he presented a choir course in Norway alongside the respected Maestro Dale Warland, at the summer school hosted by the Norwegian choir association.

He is a broadcaster on ClassicFM 102.7 where he anchors the morning shows and Classic Voices on Sunday evenings. Outside his busy schedule Michael finds time to sing with the Cenestra Male Choir under the leadership of Themba Madlopha, with whom he has sung for 15 years.

He presently serves on the board of the newly established Choral Institute of South Africa (Chorisa). He has also served on the music committee of the National Arts Council of South Africa. Michael continues to work very closely with the father of choral music in South Africa, Emeritus Prof. Mzilikazi Khumalo, focussing on the composer's lesser-known works.

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Melissa Gerber

Melissa Gerber has received vocal training at Ms. Norma Biagi in Johannesburg since 2003 and is currently a student of Ms. Hanli Stapela. She is a current first year BMus student at the University of Pretoria with voice as first instrument.

Her recent achievements include:

• Passed UNISA Grade 5 Singing Exam with distinction.
• Passed UNISA Grade 6 Singing Exam with distinction.
• Placed on UNISA 2007 Roll of Honour with a mark of 91%.
• Received the UNISA Nellie du Toit Merit award — Best marks in exams, Grade 3 to 7.
• Passed UNISA Grade 8 Singing Exam with distinction.
• Received a SAMRO Bursary in 2009 for First year BMus studies.
• Salon Music Semi Finalist for Discovering Voices in 2008.

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Malané Hofmeyr-Burger

Malané Hofmeyr-Burger was born into a musical family, studied piano and recorder from an early age. She went on to study flute with Denise Gardiner, Chippy Yutar and Eva Tamassy. She matriculated at the Helpmekaar Girls' High School and graduated at the University of Stellenbosch.

In her final year, amongst other achievements, she won the Forte- and Oude Meester Music Competitions. After completing her studies she went to Vienna, Austria (thus realizing a childhood dream) to further her studies. Over the years she attended master classes with Aurele Nicolet, Marc Grauwels, Shigenori Kudo, William Bennett, Trevor Wye, Hansgeorg Schmeiser and chamber music master classes with Clifford Benson.

Malané has performed as soloist with most of the renowned orchestras in South Africa — the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, CAPAB, Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Eastern Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and Free State Symphony Orchestra. A lover of chamber music, she is a member of the Umoya Wind Ensemble, Salon Five Music Ensemble, the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa and other groups. Amongst her most cherished performances are the annual outdoor concerts in the Kruger National Park with a number of close friends and colleagues.

Currently she is a permanent member of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra. During her career, Malané has performed on concert stages all over South Africa and Zambia, Mozambique, Seychelles, Austria, Belgium and Italy. Malané has recorded on numerous occasions for radio, television and CD recordings. Her 2 CD's, 'Air' and 'African Rondo', both SAMA-Award nominated, with fellow musicians are compilation of classical music and cross-over jazz.

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Morten Lauridsen

The music of Morten Johannes Lauridsen, composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994-2001 and professor of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music for more than thirty years, occupies a permanent place in the standard vocal repertoire of the Twentieth Century. His seven vocal cycles -- Les Chansons des Roses (Rilke), Mid-Winter Songs (Graves), Cuatro Canciones (Lorca), A Winter Come (Moss), Madrigali: Six "FireSongs" on Renaissance Italian Poems, Nocturnes, and Lux Aeterna — and his series of sacred a cappella motets (O Magnum Mysterium, Ave Maria, O Nata Lux, Ubi Caritas et Amor and Ave Dulcissima Maria) are featured regularly in concert by distinguished ensembles throughout the world. O Magnum Mysterium, Dirait-on (from Les Chansons des Roses) and O Nata Lux (from Lux Aeterna) have become the all-time best-selling choral octavos distributed by Theodore Presser, in business since 1783.

In speaking of Lauridsen's sacred works in his book, Choral Music in the Twentieth Century, musicologist and conductor Nick Strimple describes Lauridsen as "the only American composer in history who can be called a mystic, (whose) probing, serene work contains an elusive and indefinable ingredient which leaves the impression that all the questions have been answered… From 1993 Lauridsen's music rapidly increased in international popularity, and by century's end he had eclipsed Randall Thompson as the most frequently performed American choral composer."

His works have been recorded on over a hundred CDs, three of which have received Grammy nominations, including O Magnum Mysterium by the New York-based ensemble, Tiffany Consort, led by Nicholas White, and two all-Lauridsen discs entitled Lux Aeterna by the Los Angeles Master Chorale conducted by Paul Salamunovich (RCM) and Polyphony with the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Stephen Layton (Hyperion). His principal publishers are Peermusic (New York/Hamburg) and Peer's affiliate, Faber Music (London).

A recipient of numerous grants, prizes and commissions, Dr. Lauridsen chaired the Composition department at the USC Thornton School of Music from 1990-2002, founded the School's Advanced Studies Program in Film Scoring, and is currently Distinguished Professor of Composition. In 2006, Morten Lauridsen was named an "American Choral Master" by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007, he was the recipient of the National Medal of Arts from the President in a White House ceremony, "for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide." The National Medal of Arts is the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the United States government.

www.mortenlauridsen.com

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

David Matthews

David Matthews was born in London and started composing at the age of sixteen. He read Classics at the University of Nottingham — which has also made him an Honorary Doctor of Music — and afterwards studied composition privately with Anthony Milner. He was also much helped by the advice and encouragement of Nicholas Maw. He spent three years as an assistant to Benjamin Britten at Aldeburgh in the late 1960's. He has largely avoided teaching, but to support his composing career has done editorial work — he collaborated with Deryck Cooke on the performing version of Mahler's Tenth Symphony — and orchestrations of film music. He has also written a book on the music of Michael Tippett, and has just completed a book on Britten which will be published in spring 2003. He published a lecture on the relation of music to painting, Landscape into Sound, and reviews for various journals. Matthews is Music Advisor to the English Chamber Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Deal Festival. His music is widely played in Britain and abroad, is frequently broadcast, and over a dozen of his works are available on CD. His musical language on the one hand grew out of his English background and his special concern for the music of Tippett, Britten and Maw; but it is also strongly connected to the central European tradition, back through Mahler and ultimately to Beethoven. Matthews has been much concerned with working in the great inherited forms of the past — symphony, string quartet, lately oratorio — and finding new ways of renewing them. To date he has written five symphonies and ten string quartets; also four symphonic poems — two of which; In the Dark Time and Chaconne, have recently been recorded by the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the NMC label. His numerous chamber works include commissions by the Schubert Ensemble, Nash Ensemble, Brodsky Quartet, Brindisi Quartet and many others; vocal music includes a dramatic scena, Cantiga, for soprano and orchestra, premiered at the 1988 Proms, and a large-scale Vespers for soloists, chorus and orchestra for the Huddersfield Choral Society. His recent large-scale work, Concerto in Azzurro is a cello concerto for Steven Isserlis and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and was premiered in October 2002 in Swansea with Richard Hickox.

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Nicholas Maw

Nicholas Maw, who died this year, was an acknowledged master in whatever genre he expressed himself, and one whose musical language is instantly recognisable. Born in 1935 in Grantham, Lincolnshire, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London (1955-58) with Paul Steinitz and Lennox Berkeley; and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Schoenberg's pupil, Max Deutsch. His career as a teacher included positions at Trinity College Cambridge, Exeter University and Yale University. Until 2008 he was Professor of Composition at the Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore.

He won may prizes and awards including the 1959 Lili Boulanger Prize, the 1980 Midsummer Prize of the City of London, the 1991 Sudler International Wind Band Composition Competition for American Games and the 1993 Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Maw received commissions from many of the major musical organisations in the United Kingdom such as the BBC, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Philharmonia Orchestra. He has been the featured composer at many festivals an in 1989 the BBC presented a 'Nicholas Maw Day' at the South Bank.

His extensive and varied catalogue includes much chamber music, vocal and choral music, two comic operas (the chamber opera One Man Show, 1964, and the three-act The Rising of the Moon, 1967-70), solo instrumental works, and music for children. Maw is, however, most celebrated for his orchestral music: his reputation being established when, at the age of 26, he produced Scenes and Arias (1962) for a BBC Prom, which immediately put him right at the forefront of the British musical scene.

In addition to fulfilling other numerous commissions, from 1973 to 1987 Maw composed Odyssey for orchestra: the single, unbroken 96-minute span of symphonic music which has been unanimously lauded since its initial performance in 1987 at a BBC Prom in London. The EMI recording by Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1992 and cited by Classic CD (June 2000) as the best recording out of a hundred recommended releases in the decade. Leonard Slatkin and the St Louis Orchestra gave the American premiere of Odyssey in St Louis and New York's Carnegie Hall in 1994. The more recent (1993) Violin Concerto in a recording by Joshua Bell for Sony, was nominated for the 2000 Mercury Prize.

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Michael Mosoeu Moerane

Michael Mosoeu Moerane was born in Lesotho on 20 September 1909. His initial education was at Lovedale, where he completed his Junior Certificate in 1924, followed by tertiary courses at the university of Fort Hare in 1925. He soon became known as a pianist, choirmaster and (most importantly) as a composer of repute. In 1927 he became a part-time teacher at Lovedale Training School, and in 1930 a member of the permanent teaching staff at Lovedale High School. In 1938 he went back to Lesotho, where he taught at Maseru High School. After a year at Umfundisweni Institute in Pondoland, he returned to his home country in 1964 to teach as Peka High School. Michael Moerane died in 1981.

Having become involved in ther serious study of music, he ultimately obtained a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of South African in 1941, the first black South African to achieve that distinction. For his 'Graduation Exercise' he composer a Symphonic Poem for full orchestra entitled Fatse La Heso ('My Country'). One of the several indigenous themes incorporated in this work is the Sesotho lullaby Ho Koeetsa Ngoana. The composition was premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Clifford Curzon (also well-known as a concert pianist) in 1944 and was subsequently performed in New York and Paris under the baton of the pioneering black American conductor Dean Dixon.

Several works by Moerane — Liphala, Ruri, Sylvia and Della — have been extensively used by both Provincial and National School Authorities as prescribed pieces for choral eisteddfodau (from SAMRO Sings edited by Prof. Mzilikazi Khumalo).

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa

Joshua Pulumo Mohapeloa grew up and started primary education at Molumong in the Mokhotlong district. He received junior secondary education at Morija. His study for the matriculation certificate at Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape was interrupted by illness and he had to go home. At this stage, his father had moved from Molumong and was stationed at Mohalinyane in the Mohale's Hoek district. Mohapeloa harnessed his creative energies into composing and his first book of songs was published in 1937, followed by further study for a diploma in music under Professor Percival Kirby at the University of the Witwatersrand. Over a hundred of Mohapeloa's songs were published in book or pamphlet form. His music has over the years been popularly enjoyed by adult and youth choirs in concerts and competitions, as well as on radio and television. His work was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II of England, who awarded him the honour of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). The Kingdom of Lesotho awarded him the Knighthood of the Order of Ramats'eatsana (KCOR). The National University of Lesotho also awarded him a Doctorate of Letters (D Litt). He composed the Anthem of the OAU. His works are published in tonic solfa by Morija Press and Oxford University Press.

[ up to: Composers & Performers | Biographies ]

Richard Pantcheff

Whilst internationally renowned as a composer in many genres, Richard Pantcheff has established a reputation as a specialist composer of choral and organ music. His musical career commenced as Head Chorister at Ripon Cathedral in England. He went on to study music at Christ Church, Oxford University under Simon Preston and Francis Grier.

Many of his works have been commissioned and performed by the major cathedral and college choirs in the UK and Germany, including those of the Episcopal Church in Frankfurt-am-Main, Salisbury, Winchester, St Paul's and Glasgow Cathedrals, as well as the choirs of Magdalen College and Lincoln College, Oxford and the clerks of Christ Church, Oxford.

Much of his output for Organ has been published, distributed and performed around the world and his choral and organ works have been broadcast in the US, UK, Caribbean and South America. A large number of this compositions have appeared on commercially-released CDs to wide acclaim, most recent of which have been the recordings of Five Elizabethan Lyrica on SOMM label and the Sonata for Organ on the Herals label. The Sonata for Organ was premiered on the Klais organ at St John's, Smith Square, London, in December 2008.

Additionally, he has had success with Hymns of Cherubim, which was commissioned for the combined choirs of Sailsbury, Winchester and Chichester Cathedrals for the Southern Cathedrals' Festival in 2000 and On Hearing the Oxford Bells at Eventide, for Narrator and Orchestra, which was premiered at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford. His music has been performed at the Newbury Spring Festival and the St Magnus Festival, Orkney, as well as the Victoria Bach Festival in Texas, USA.

In 2007 he completed a new Requiem for the Choir of St Michael's Cathedral, Barbados and his most recent works are a Nocturne for Contrabassoon and Orchestra and a Sonata for Bassoon and Piano, both of which were commissioned by soloists in South Africa and broadcast on ClassicFM and SAFM.

As a Choral Director he appeared at the 2006 Holders Opera Festival in Barbados, conducting Mozart's Requiem. In December 2008 he was appointed composer in residence to the Chamber Choir of South Africa.

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Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla

Astor Pantaleón Piazzolla was born on March 11, 1921 in Mar del Plata, Argentina, the only child of Vicente 'Nonino' Piazzolla and Asunta Mainetti. His opus comprises more than 1000 works and he continues to influence the best musicians in the world of all generations.

In the 1930s Piazzolla studied with the Hungarian pianist Bela Wilda, a disciple of Rachmaninov of whom Piazzolla would later say 'With him I learned to love Bach'. Shortly thereafter, he met Carlos Gardel who became a good friend of the family and with whom he took part in the movie El Dia Que me Quieras, playing a brief part as a newspaper boy. This feature film played a monumental role in the history of Tango.

After Piazzolla moved to Buenos Aires and played in several tango orchestras he began his 'classical' works with the Suite para Cuerdas y Arpas. In 1946 he composed El Desbande, which he considered his first formal tango. Shortly afterwards he began to compose musical scores for movies.

Between 1950 and 1954 Piazzolla composed a series of works, clearly different from the conception of tango at the time, and that further define his unique style: Para lucirse, Tanguango, Prepárense, Contrabajeando, Triunfal and Lo que vendrá. In 1953 his music caused much scandal when his work Buenos Aires (three symphonic pieces including two bandoneons) won the first prize in the Fabien Sevitzky competition. Many audience members felt it an indignity to include bandoneons in a symphonic orchestra.

Piazzolla then went on to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, where he composed and recorded a series of tangos with a string orchestra. Upon his return to Argentina he continued to approach Tango and the bandoneon with ever greater energy. What was once a choice between the sophisticated music or tango now became fused.

Between 1958 and 1960 Piazzolla worked in the US, where he experimented with Jazz-Tango and where, because of the death of his father in October 1959, he wrote the famous Adiós Nonino. Upon his return to Argentina, he created the first of many famous quintets, playing New Tango (bandoneon, violin, bass, piano, and electric guitar). The quintet was Piazzolla's most beloved formation; the musical synthesis that best expressed his ideas.

In 1969, with Horacio Ferrer, he composes Balada para un loco, presented at the First Iberoamerican Music Festival, where he received second place. This work became Piazzolla's first popular hit and was premiered by Amelita Baltar with Piazzolla himself conducting the orchestra.

In 1973, Piazzolla decided to move to Italy where he embarked on a series of recordings which spanned 5 years, the most famous being Libertango, a work that became widely popular throughout Europe.

Piazzolla reached the height of his fame in the late 1970s, when he toured Europe, South America, Japan, and the United States. In 1985 he was named an exceptional citizen of Buenos Aires an the following year he received the Cesar prize in Paris for the score of the film El exilio de Gardel. In 1987 he recorded Concert for bandoneon and Three Tangos bandoneon and orchestra with the St. Luke's orchestra.

In 1987 Piazzolla performed an immensely successful concert in New York's Central Park. This was a rejuvenating experience for him as the city where he spent his childhood and where he became mesmerised by the music of Bach and Jazz, finally paid attention to his music. The records released in the US in the late 1980s document his life. These include Tango Zero Hour, Tango Apasionado, La Camorra, Five tango Sensations (with the Kronos quartet), and Piazzolla with Gary Burton.

Astor Piazzolla died in Buenos Aires on July 4, 1992 as a result of heart problems and a stroke that he suffered two years earlier. (adapted from www.piazzolla.org)

www.piazzolla.org

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Jill Richards

Jill Richards' passion for contemporary music started while she was a student at the University of Cape Town and has led to her being South Africa's foremost performer of new piano music today. She has long been associated with new music groups, workshops and festivals, ranging from the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (broadcast by the BBC) to South African events such as the annual New Music Indaba, where she performs regularly. Her special insight into new music performance comes also from her close work with many composers (including a workshop with Russian composers in 1993, where her ensemble was the first group of South Africans to perform in post-communist Russia). Richards has had a large number of works — from solo pieces to concertos — dedicated to her, including two sets of etudes by Kevin Volans, with a third set to be completed later this year. Another dedication was Shiva Dances for two pianos, which was premièred by Jill and Kevin Volans at a BBC concert in London in February 2008; her collaboration with Kevin started when she performed his two-piano work Cicada (later released on CD) at his 50th Birthday concert at the South Bank, London. Jill Richards also has a close working relationship with Philip Miller, the composer of the music for artist William Kentridge's 9 Drawings For Projection — a live film and music event that has been performed extensively in South Africa as well as in Central Park and Prospect Parks in New York, the Barbican Centre in London and the Commonwealth Festival in Melbourne. She has been widely broadcast, not only in South Africa and the UK, but also in the US and Europe, and has released four CDs, with the fifth to be released in 2008. Her versatility means that she is equally at home with the standard repertoire, both as soloist and chamber musician. Her piano duo partners include Kevin Volans and Michael Blake, and she has also worked with jazz composers Surendran Reddy and Denzil Weale. She includes in her extensive repertoire music from across the African continent, which she has performed worldwide. Jill Richards is a Steinway artist.

www.jillrichards.com

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Hanli Stapela

Hanli Stapela's extensive career on the stage has taken her all over southern Africa, as well as Europe, the USA and Mauritius. She has won numerous awards for her operatic performances and while her repertoire includes a wide range of roles, she is also a consummate concert artist, regularly performing lieder, oratorio and other orchestral works. Her performances also included several official state functions and concerts at South African embassies worldwide and in Washington DC she performed at a concert for the Chinese ambassador to the USA.

Her career in the theatre started as opera repetiteur at the State Theatre Pretoria. It was this stint that convinced her to pursue a career as a singer. Soon she was contracted by the Pro Musica theatre to sing the composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, which launched her operatic career. She was offered a contract at the State Theatre where she rose to the position of principal soloist before embarking on a freelance career. Her roles include Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), Violetta (La Traviata), Gilda (Rigoletto), Olympia and Antonia (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), Norina (Don Pasquale), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Ilia (Idomeneo), Hanna Glawari (The Merry Widow), the Countess (Le nozze die Figaro), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Manon (Manon), Marguerite (Faust), Baby Doe (The ballad of Baby Doe), Mimi (La Bohème), Micaela, Nedda (I pagliacci) and Cio Cio San (Madama Butterfly). She became widely known to radio and television audiences through numerous concert and opera performances as well as a personal profile on Kyknet.

She lived in the USA for many years, where she performed widely with orchestras and as recitalist, appeared as Rosalinda (Die Fledermaus) at the Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall and added several American compositions to her repertoire, like Baby Doe (The Ballad of Baby Doe) by Douglas Moore and Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915. A review of her portrayal of the protagonist in the opera The Ballad of Baby Doe stated:

"Soprano Hanli Stapela was superior to performances I've heard on recordings from (Beverly) Sills and Jan Grissom, or seen in Central City, New York, Bloomington (Indiana) with other Baby Does. The richness and brightness of Stapela's voice, the narrow vibrato and wonderful phrasing, her ability to soar into the high tessitura with complete ease…"

Since her return to South Africa she has been teaching voice and is currently associated with Tshwane University of Technology and University of Pretoria as well as maintaining a private studio.

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Hannes Taljaard

Hannes Taljaard was born in 1971 in Venda, the northernmost part of South Africa. He very soon developed a keen interest in music and his formal music education started early.

Before he achieved his doctorate in Composition and Musicology, he was awarded bachelors, honours and masters degrees cum laude between 1993 and 1997 from Potchefstroom University (North-West University). His studies have also taken him to colleges and conservatoires in England, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland and Bulgaria.

His compositions have received numerous South African prizes, as well as a first prize in the international contest "Flores Iuventutis" in 1994/5. He recently received the PUK Chancellors' Trust Prize for composition. His works have been performed in South Africa and since 1998 in Europe. He is currently working on a number of commissions for European ensembles and South African musicians.

His interests involve composition, music theory, music education and musicology as well as the performance of chamber music (piano). He has also read papers at national and international musicological congresses, including the IMS in Leuven in August 2002. Since 1994, Hannes has taught harmony, counterpoint, analysis, aural training, composition and orchestration at North-West University.

Hannes Taljaard is currently senior lecturer in Music Theory (Analysis) and composer-in-residence at the School of Music of the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus. His compositions have been performed in South Africa, Europe and North America and he has appeared as guest lecturer in Composition/Music Analysis/Music Education in South Africa (Wits and Stellenbosch), Europe (Norway and Finland), North America (Canada and the USA) and Central America (Panama). He studied composition privately with Wim Henderickx in Antwerp and completed his D.Mus. in Composition under Prof. Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph in South Africa in 2007.

"In my work I am currently exploring ways in which compositions can interact with listeners' perception and attention. I would like to be able to write works that can capture listeners and in this way extend (maybe even deepen?) their experiences of their present moments. I hope to achieve this through the further development of my technique and through research into and reflection upon the varied ways in which people listen to music."

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James Tenney

James Tenney, who was born in 1934 in New Mexico and died in August 2006 in Valencia, California was a Canadian-American composer of stage, orchestral, chamber, choral, vocal, piano, and electroacoustic works that have been performed throughout the world; he is also active as a scholar.

Prof. Tenney received his early training as a composer and studied engineering at the University of Denver from 1952-54 and piano with Eduard Steuermann at the Juilliard School of Music in 1954-55. He then studied conducting with Paul Boepple and Henry Brant and composition with Lionel Nowak at Bennington College from 1956-58, where he earned his BA, and studied composition with Kenneth Gaburo and electronic music with Lejaren Hiller at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1959-61 and there he earned his MA. He also studied composition privately with John Cage, Chou Wen-chung, Carl Ruggles, and Edgard Varèse. He later received an honorary doctorate from the Dartington College of the Arts in 2000.

As a scholar, he was long been active in the fields of computer music and electronic music and worked to develop programs for computer sound-generation and composition with Max V. Mathews and other researchers at the Bell Telephone Laboratories from 1961-64. He was the author of numerous articles on computer music, musical acoustics, musical form, and perception, and the books META/HODOS: A Phenomenology of 20th-Century Musical Materials and an Approach to the Study of Form (1961) and META Meta/Hodos.

Tenney co-founded with Philip Corner and Malcolm Goldstein the new-music group Tone Roads Chamber Ensemble in New York City in 1963 and served as its pianist and occasional conductor from 1963-70. In addition, he performed with the ensembles of John Cage, Philip Glass, Harry Partch, and Steve Reich.

He taught electrical engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn from 1966-70 and musical subjects at the California Institute of the Arts from 1970-75 and the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1975-76. He then taught composition at York University in Toronto from 1976-2000, where he was Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus from 2000-06. He taught as the Roy E. Disney Family Chair in Music Composition at the California Institute of the Arts from 2000-06.

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Kevin Volans

Kevin Volans has been described as 'one of the planet's most distinctive and unpredictable voices' [Kyle Gann — Village Voice 1998]. He was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa in 1949. After completing a BMus at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg he went on to study in Cologne, principally with Karlheinz Stockhausen, later becoming his teaching assistant. In the mid-70's his work became associated with the 'Neue Einfachheit' (New Simplicity) — the beginnings of post-modernism in music.

In 1979 following several field recording trips to Africa, he embarked on a series of pieces based on African compositional techniques which quickly established Volans as a distinctive voice on the European new music circuit. In 1986 Kevin Volans began a productive collaboration with the Kronos Quartet. White Man Sleeps for string quartet (1986), Hunting: Gathering (1987) and The Songlines (1988) were all written for them, and given performances in festivals ranging from the Salzburg Festival to the Montreal Jazz Festival, Berliner Festwoche, Tokyo Inkspot, Adelaide Festival, Next Wave Festival (New York) and New Music America, bringing his work to a very wide audience. The Kronos discs, White Man Sleeps and Pieces of Africa broke all records for string quartet disc sales — the latter was number one on the US Classical and world music charts for 26 weeks, outselling all but Pavarotti.

In the 1990s Volans gave increasing attention to writing for dance, collaborating with Siobhan Davies, Jonathan Burrows, Shobana Jeyasingh in Britain as well as numerous other companies around the world. In 1999 the South bank hosted a fiftieth birthday celebration of his work in the Queen Elizabeth Hall. John Allison wrote in The Times: 'When it comes to composers, only a few today could be called true originals, and Kevin Volans is one of them.'

Latterly, he has turned his attention to writing for orchestra and as well as collaborating with visual artists. Recent commissions include a piano concerto for Marc-Andre Hamelin, a trio concerto for the Storioni Trio, new string quartets for the Smith and Vanburgh quartets and a chamber piece for the Crash ensemble. Future projects include a triple ensemble piece for exhibitions of the artist, Juergen Partenheimer's work at the IKON Gallery, Birmingham, and the Deutsches Kunstmuseum.

www.kevinvolans.com

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