kagablog

27 January 2010 9.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m. (followed by the Hartmann/Moerane concert at the Linder Auditorium at 8.00 p.m.)

Wednesday 27 January 2010

9:00 Welcome and introduction

Session 1: Exile, Literature and Music

9:15 Muff Andersson - The nomad sings, the nomad walks, the nomad rests: the ‘condition’ of exile
9:35 Matildie Thom-Wium - ‘My country, my dry, forsaken country’: On exile in Arnold van Wyk’s, NP van Wyk Louw’s and Ovid’s Tristia.
9:55 Willie Kgositsile - Title to be confirmed

10:15 Questions/comments/discussion
10:45 Tea

Session 2: Identities

11:15 Michael Haas - From Bach to Schönberg: How “German” was music from fin de Siècle Vienna?
12:05 Xoli Norman - Title to be confirmed
12:25 Stephanie Vos - Interpreting the notion of nationality in the case of John Joubert

12:45 Questions/comments/discussion
13:15 Lunch

Session 3: In conversation

14:00 Stephanus Muller, Steve Dyer, Warrick Sony, Michael Blake and Mokale Koapeng
Discussion panel

15:30 Tea

Session 4: Exile in composition and performance

16:00 Jean-Pierre de la Porte - Exile on the spot: how does one recognize minor music?
16:30 Pre-concert talk by Mokale Koapeng (on Moerane) - Title to be confirmed
17:00 Pre-concert talk by Tim Jackson (on Hartmann) - Title to be confirmed

18:00 Symposium ends

18:05 Drinks and dinner at Goethe
19:15 Travel to Linder
20:00 Concert at Linder - Moerane, Hartmann and Mozart

Thursday 28 January 2010

Session 5: Places

9:00 David Coplan - S.A. Jazz in Exile: Exporting Sophiatown and District 6
9:20 Hilde Roos - Opera in exile: the Eoan Group
9:40 Gwen Ansell - So close to home: South African jazz in African exile

10:00 Questions/comments/discussion
10:20 Tea

Session 6: People

10:50 Tim Jackson - keynote address - Title to be confirmed
11:40 Aryan Kaganof - Blue Notes from Johnny
12:00 Chris van Rhyn - The wingless flight – A consideration of Priaulx Rainier and her Requiem in the context of exile
12:40 Colette Szymczak - Jonas Gwangwa, musician and cultural activist

13:00 Questions/comments/discussion
13:30 Lunch

Session 7: Perspectives

14:15 Christine Lucia - The smell of a grass fire
14:35 Chats Devroop - Emotional displacement amongst South African Jazz Musicians who stayed behind
14:55 Mokale Koapeng - Composing in South Africa

15:15 Questions/comments/discussion
15:45 Closing remarks
16:00 Symposium ends

Goethe Institut Johannesburg

The Music and Exile: North-South Narratives Symposium explores the relationship between sound and place in South Africa and internationally. This is done from the perspective of scholars, performers, composers and other stakeholders in the discourse, and covers a wide variety of music, including art music, jazz, South African traditional and popular music. The Symposium forms part of the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival, and will present an informative and thought-provoking extension of the Festival’s 16 music concerts. The Symposium is specially linked with the concert on 27 January at the Linder Auditorium, where works of double-exiled composer Friedrich Hartmann and South African composer Michael Moerane will be performed.

The topic of exile is of great significance in music of the twentieth (and twenty-first) century, as the political situations of Apartheid and the Second World War, to name only two instances, caused many migrations. Exile is, however, not only limited to experiences of political oppression: exile could be forced or voluntary (or combinations of both), as well as physical and/or spiritual. Composers or performers who have been forced to leave their countries are different to those who leave it voluntarily; musicians who use their music to migrate ‘inwards’ in their art are different to those who use it to remember the places they have left behind. Exile prompts categories like ‘Before the departure’; ‘uprootment’, ‘flight’, ‘arrival’, ‘place’, ‘new beginnings’, ‘nostalgia for home’ and ‘return’. Although these conditions of exile are universal, and enable a geographically and historically wide-ranging discussion, exile can be seen as a topos of South African cultural, and specifically musical, production.

Some of the prominent scholars who will present papers at the symposium include Timothy Jackson (University of North Texas), Michael Haas (Jewish Museum, Vienna), Christine Lucia (Stellenbosch University), David Coplan (University of the Witwatersrand) and Gwen Ansell (author of Soweto Blues). There will also be discussions led by Stephanus Muller (Stellenbosch University) with composers and performers Michael Blake, Mokale Koapeng, Steve Dyers, aryan kaganof and Warrick Sony.

Members of the public are welcome and attendance is free. To reserve a place please send an e-mail to dpt@johannesburg.goethe.org. For more information, contact Stephanie Vos at 012 429 6782 or svos@unisa.ac.za, or visit the website www.join-mozart-festival.org. The symposium programme will be made available on the website next week.