kagablog

Michael Blake (piano)
“Spring in Havana” International Electroacoustic Music Festival
16 March 2008, 16h00, Basílica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asís, Havana, Cuba

In the course of researching Xhosa music (in the Eastern Cape, South Africa), one of Dr David Dargie’s informants, Mrs Amelia No-Silence Matiso, told him how the Xhosa people like “to put salt into their songs” to bring the performance to life. Salt may be added rhythmically, melodically and harmonically through the use of cross-rhythms, clap-delay techniques, altered scale tones, parallel melodic and harmonic parts, non-harmonic tones, dissonance, pattern-singing, and a variety of vocal techniques. The now legendary Nofinishi Dywili, whose live and recorded performances are among my most memorable musical experiences, was probably the greatest exponent of uhadi bow music. Strangely, the day after I had completed the piece I heard from a friend, Andrew Tracey, that she had died. “Ways to put in the salt” was written at the request of John Tilbury who gave the first performance in the Beethoven Room, Grahamstown, South Africa on 28 June 2002 during the New Music Indaba. In 2006 I had the idea of composing a commentary on the piece that would sample and transform the sounds of the uhadi bow and singers, and sometimes sample the voice of Nofinishi herself. This can be played as a second layer of the piece, a kind of Kontakte in reverse — since the soundtrack came later. “Ways to put in the salt (Havana version 2008)” is my small tribute to Stockhausen, without whom we wouldn’t have electronic music or electroacoustic music festivals.

by mick raubenheimer

“The task of the artist is to suggest a new reality. Either through re-imagining a given system of communication, a shifting of its limits; or simply by communication of the incommunicable, of special experience. In this way the artist expands the consciousness of the Human.” Anonymous, 2047

From the past.

In 1937 Edgard Varese, pioneer of 20th century experimental music, voiced his frustration with the restrictions of the classical idiom indirectly, and optimistically: “I anticipate a future where technology has advanced to the degree that it can give voice to the inner landscapes of my musical imagination.” Together with John Cage, Ionesco and Stockhausen, Varese was determined to break through the self-imposed boundaries of what constituted so-called Classical music, and indeed, what constituted music itself. Throughout the bustle and flow of the 20th century, and even today, the term ‘classical music’ has been problematic. What these rebels were contesting was the received notion that Classical music, the genre itself, was something fixed, set in stone - an established canon of repertoire past (with the hesitant, and rare, inclusion of selected 20th century greats), to be played by classically trained musicians, on traditionally ‘classical’ instruments. End of story. In fact you’ll find that even today, almost a century on, ninety percent of ‘classical’ concerts still abide by said notion. So what happens to classically-trained composers and musicians who want to expand the idiom, test its language with new expression? Does ‘classical’ and ‘new’ music have to be mutually exclusive? The problem, here, lies in the name of the rose (if I may mix my authors..)

It was in response to the problems above that the International Society of Contemporary Music (hereafter the ISCM) was established in 1922. The society found a very simple way to resolve the retro-fetish intrinsic to the notion of Classical music - they dropped the ‘classical’! As implied in its name, the ISCM considered the canon to be merely a foundation for contemporary and future expressions of Classical music. Focussing its energy on contemporary efforts, as well as in breaking free of the Eurocentric mold automatically associated with Classical music, the ISCM promoted experimentation and exploration, whilst retaining the fundamental requisites of technical excellence, and the approach to music as artform, which it considered to be the true distinction between Classical and Popular music. The ISCM’s annual music festival, originally called the World Music Days, hosted the premieres of compositions by a great many important 20th century composers, among them Ravel, Bartok, Stockhausen and Ligeti; and it is surely thanks to its passionate committal to the promotion and celebration of the contemporary, that new, quintessentially 20th century movements such as Minimalism became both popular and acknowledged by the purists.

The New Music Indaba 2007, held primarily at UNISA’s Sunnyside campus from 10-13 October this year, was the latest instalment of the annual contemporary music festival & workshop hosted by New Music SA, the local wing of the ISCM. As can be expected, New Music SA’s focus is rightfully on facilitating and exploring dialogues between African traditional forms and the more European slant of ‘established’ Classical music. Each annual Indaba throws spotlights on promising local composers, and gives them the opportunity to interact with world-renowned musicians and composers. This year was no exception.

To the present.

New Music SA rejoined the ISCM, fittingly, after the obtuse shadow of Apartheid had passed; this after an absence of four decades. It was thanks to the efforts of internationally celebrated local composer and pianist Michael Blake that New Music SA was reintroduced to the world-stage in 2000. Since then, there have been seven musically invigorating Indabas held in Grahamstown, where Blake was then established; having relocated to UNISA, the Indaba loyally followed. It must be mentioned, however, that the New Music Indaba is not linked to any one academic institution, and indeed invites and accommodates students of music and composers from all national universities and schools. Most importantly, these Indabas are open to the public, and is highly recommended for all lovers of music, and, in my opinion, all lovers of art in whichever form.

The 2007 Indaba kicked off on Wednesday 10 October with a composer’s forum. Presentations on aspects of composition and arrangement were given by Paul Hanmer, who spoke of stylistic crossover and picked up the theme of this year’s Indaba (Ínstrumental voices) by exploring the transition from vocal to instrumental composition citing two of his own compositions; Vevek Ram , acclaimed local sitarist, who discussed the problems of translating Classical Indian Music into scores for large instrumental ensembles, as well as exploring solutions citing works by Phillip Glass and developments in Bollywood soundtracking as examples. The last presentation was given by the very animated Robert Maxim, internationally-acclaimed conductor of 35 yrs standing, who has resided in SA for the last 13 yrs and fallen in love with its traditional musical cultures; Mr Maxim focussed on his contributions in arranging Mzilikhazi Khumalo’s (whom he names ‘’Africa’s Beethoven'’) ‘Ushaka’ for classical performance, an arduous process, apparently, to argue that any successful marriage between disparate musical cultures, and especially translation of works from one idiom into the other, requires of the arranger to ‘’leave his ego at the door”. He also stressed that such endeavours are doomed from the outset unless the arranger understands the cultural world behind the source material completely before translating it (in his case, arranging it for classical orchestra).

Next was to be the debut of the daily audio/video installations ‘Reverie’ (Aryan Kaganof & Michael Blake), and ‘The Collision project’ (Gerhard Marx & Clare Loveday), but Eskom intervened. Fortunately Dr Blake was on hand with his laptop, so everyone huddled closer for a more modest screening. After watching and listening to ‘Reverie’ the room was ahush, it seemed everyone had been touched by its elegiac beauty. During the discussion that followed, both collaborators being present, Kaganof suggested that the premiere was enhanced by the concentration and physical intimacy required by the smaller screen and lower volume, leading to an atmosphere he likened to being in a sacred space. This led to an interesting debate concerning the nature, and place, of the sacred in art. Several people were disappointed to hear that the piece was not to be included on Michael Blake’s forthcoming piano works cd collection, to which Kaganof countered that perhaps making the work available to consumerism stripped it of the concentrated appreciation that it enjoyed that day - that the value of art is perhaps heightened when it has to be sought out. In response to Kaganof’s temple/sacred space perspective, Paul Hanmer asked why the temple couldn’t just be taken to the masses. Due to the more detailed nature of ‘The Collision project’, the less-than-optimal audio and visuals detracted was felt to detract from it so it was shelved for the following day; my experience of both pieces will then follow below.

Wednesday was concluded by the virtuoso solo-marimba performance of Magda De Vries, an astonishing performance that took in works from the East, through Africa, and to the West. in between performances Magda shared her thoughts on the compositions, and why they were selected.

Thursday kicked off with a bang, involving as it did the internationally-acclaimed British chamber group, The Schubert Ensemble, who led that morning’s workshop. These workshops lie at the very heart of the New Music Indaba, and its goals. The premiering of exciting new compositions (both local and international), experiments in and between idioms of music, and fantastic performances by local and international artists are wonderful in themselves - but the chief aim of these Indabas is to facilitate an open exchange between established and up-and-coming composers and musicians, creating a fertile arena for new ideas (and many a collaboration has been sparked at these very events); but even more importantly - giving students of music the incredible opportunity of hearing their music played by world-renowned musicians and ensembles; having their work discussed and explored first-hand; and even getting the chance to collaborate live. This, of course, is an unsurpassable learning opportunity.

The Schubert Ensemble kicked off the workshop by running through some of Judith Weir’s compositions; these compositions were shown to be relatively simply arranged in composition, based on different folk musics, and beautiful. The Ensemble would play interesting segments of compositions and share their individual views on aspects of them and invite the audience (consisting mostly of composers and music students), to join in analysing and appreciating them. Next the Ensemble played student-composer Joseph Abe’s ‘Extracts from the Jungle’, an interesting piece which seemed to combine oriental and African influences (the composition in its entirety would later be incorporated into their national concerts around SA) - what followed was an in-depth interaction with the composer, where the Ensemble members expressed what they enjoyed in the composition, invited Abe to make suggestions regarding the execution, and pointed out areas that might benefit from alternative approaches. The Schubert Ensemble are clearly at ease with and adept at facilitating interaction with their audience, creating a laidback atmosphere of give-and-take regarding opinions on the music performed.

The next local composition explored was Paul Hanmer’s ‘Piano Quartet’. The previous evening I had an interesting conversation with Mr Hanmer about the differences between so-called Jazz and so-called Classical Music; myself having always wondered what improvising Jazz muso’s think of the more formal, static approach of Classical.. Mr Hanmer surprised me by pointing out that to him the two disciplines shared more similarities than they bore differences; the points he made came up again during the discussion of his piece. Hanmer’s ‘Piano Quartet’ was immediately recognisable as his, the piano playing that contemplative melodious rhythm so unique to his music, and being very much the central instrument. During the discussion that followed, and after admitting to loving the piece, the Ensemble focused on segments of Mr Hanmer’s score which would have benefited with more detailed information (regarding eg. the tempo of a segment etc). It is here that Mr Hanmer’s points the previous evening came to mind again. With the exception of ridiculously over-notated scores which define exactly in which way the composer desires the piece executed (the Ensemble cites Ionesco as an example of this kind of tyrannical scoring), most scores inevitably have segments that require interpretation on the musician’s behalf, allowing the piece subtle differences in execution by different groups/solo musicians.. this, you could, say, is Classical improvisation. A great lesson to all the composers present was that one has to achieve balance between allowing for interpretation (which the Ensemble feel gives a composition air to breathe), and ‘under’-scoring, where too little interpretation could lead to a performance not intended by the composer: An unintentionally ‘wrong’ performance due to too little information in the score.

Next on Thursday’s menu was an opportunity for outsiders to glimpse the inner workings of New Music SA by attending their Planning Forum. Naturally the forum was concerned with exploring ideas that would enhance the annual Indaba events. The shift from it’s six-year stint situated in Rhodes during the Grahamstown Fest had significant effects on the Indaba. Dr Blake explained that the move had both pros and cons; while there was a significant drop in funding (they had relatively big sponsorship in Rhodes, being associated with the National Arts Festival), the shift isolated the Indabas as events in their own right, not one spectacle amongst hundreds attended by half-interested passers by. In its new manifestation the Indaba is more intimate, something which benefits both the composers and the public attending - everyone who drops by does so out of passionate interest, which concentrates the interactive quality of the Indabas. Paul Hanmer instigated a discussion regarding potential publication of commissioned compositions, something which would allow given compositions a life outside of the Indabas, and potentially lead to wider recognition for composers. The speaker revealed how, outside of web-publication, which would be open-access (and therefore preclude potential financial benefits to the composer), the prospect was highly unlikely.. he cited major international publishers as surviving purely thanks to one or two compositions that have become Classical ‘hits’ (appear in ads and are concert-favourites). A visiting composer stressed that before looking to the future and its possibilities the forum should focus on a critical inspection of whether the workshop aspect is as successful as it can be, it being the heart of the Indaba. This was agreed on, and another student composer’s complaint/suggestion was duly noted and addressed - he felt that due to lack of schooling many visiting, and even invited, composers struggle to follow the terminology taken for granted during workshops; it was agreed that future Indabas would feature more intermediation to solve this (benefiting the public as well). It was also suggested that by printing biopics of student/visiting composers and players alongside those of the featured composers and musicians would facilitate more intimacy and promote conversation between all. In response to a suggestion that the Indabas might benefit financially if they were officially associated with, and therefore backed by, UNISA, Dr Blake explained that by tying them down to one institution would not be beneficial, mentioning that he would love to see the event move from region to region every few years, thereby drawing attention to composers and trends previously unexplored.

Friday was definitely the highlight of the 2007 Indaba. The day kicked off in a detour to the University of Pretoria, which hosted the 85th birthday concert of local composer Stefans Grove segment of the Indaba. The celebration took the shape of a solo piano recital by the internationally famed Jill Richards, which included Grove’s ‘Five Glimpses’ composition along with Stockhausen and the Beatles! The concert was followed by a ‘masterclass’, where selected student and visiting composers had their works performed by Ms. Richards, and could engage with her on their pieces. The importance of careful notation resurfaced, and became the central topic during the session. A light-hearted moment came after an as-yet-incomplete piece by Mr Hanmer was performed. Prior to playing the piece, Ms. Richards kindly invited Mr. Hanmer to play it himself, which he politely declined; afterwards, everyone having applauded the complex beauty of the piece, she enquired as to how the composer would play a specific section that had challenged her, he admitted that he wasn’t sure - “I can’t play it (this piece)!” This was touched on again later when a student composer enquired of Ms. Richards her opinion on composers who score pieces outside of their capacity to play, to which she quipped that to compose only within your capacity was like “.. having a Ferrari and only driving it to the cafe’! ”

Back at UNISA, I attended the ‘full-scale’ screening of the audio/visual installations. ‘The Collision Project’ was very interesting. A collaboration between composer Clare Loveday (present) and artist Gerhard Marx, the collaboration, she said, was sparked by an idea he had been hawking from composer to composer, all declining due to its abstract, way-out nature; but for the same reasons, she felt compelled to take the challenge. The piece might be described as an attempt to give reminiscent voice to the wrecked carcass of a car; indeed, in the program notes the ‘authors’ call the piece ‘forensic music’. The broken body of the car is used to vibrate the strings of cello and violin fragments attached to it - and so, symbolically, release the car’s memories. The piece kicks off with three persons (the ‘players’) climbing into the wreck and proceeding, through soft, broken streams of whispering, to evoke the sound of a space full of criss-crossing people and conversation - the everyday hustle bustle of human life. After this the three climb out and explore/invoke the car’s past by percussively tapping it and plucking and bowing said cello and violin strings, creating an eerie, haunted atmosphere of moans and regret. The piece concludes with the players repeating the whispering interior section, before fading out with plaintively bowing cello strings. Interestingly, during the couple of minutes witnessed during the small-screen attempt two days prior, the piece seemed to benefit by the ill-defined visuals, consisting of blurs moving around a car; now the well-defined players distract the viewer’s attention from the car, in so doing, removing its voice by revealing the mechanisation..

‘Reverie’ (created in 2003) marks the first of many later collaborations between director/writer/artist Aryan Kaganof and much-lauded composer/pianist Michael Blake (whom you’ve met several times during the course of this article). A fascinating concept, and sublimely executed, the collaboration is based around a solo-piano piece composed by Blake in the mid-Nineties. The concept for their project was, in a sense, a direct inversion of the tradition movie soundtrack audio-visual dynamic. Whereas in traditional soundtracking the music exists to highlight, amplify or contradict the psychological aspects of a movie, to operate as a kind of meta-text to the film; in ‘reverie’ the focus is the music, with the visuals serving to compliment the atmosphere of the piece through subtle shifts of tension and harmony. Usually when visuals are created to support music, as in Veejaying (where ‘visual dj’s create visuals to accompany songs at electronic dance events and parties), the approach is overtly ‘literal’, or symmetrical, with the visuals merely manipulated to match the rhythm of the music. Here Kaganof has succeeded in making a visual track that embodies all the subtleties of a sophisticated score in its relation to the central piece, here the music. The piece itself is a softly repetitive, simplistically and gently beautiful composition; interestingly, the Shona and San vocals on which the piano melodies are based suggest Oriental influence, which might have influenced Kaganof’s idea for the source-material of his visuals, the mood of the piece, a kind of beautiful, slightly melancholic limbo, certainly did. His source-material is footage of citizens of Tokyo strolling through one of the city’s beloved parks; he describes the frenetic pace of day-to-day Tokyo as “40 times the pace of Joburg..”, which has led to the tradition of Sundays dedicated to languid strolling in these peaceful parks, a literal unwinding. The figures in the camera shots have been manipulated into soft, spilling splotches of form moving to the mood of, as opposed to the rhythm of, Dr Blake’s composition; formal quality of this visual manipulation led one of the viewers to liken it to Impressionism in painting. Certainly the visuals do suggest a slow-spilling painting.

Friday evening was sounded out in an almost direct inversion of ‘Reverie’s limbo - a colourfully explosive performance by Marc Dube and his Minimal Thing ensemble. Mr Dube and his student ensemble were here to introduce us to Soundpainting, a fascinating form of what might be called ‘improvising improvisation’, based on several hand- and body-signals used by a conductor to.. err.. conduct his ensemble’s improvisation. Confusing no? yes. Different from Classical conducting in that there are no scores to be strictly followed note-for-note; the ’score’ instead consists of these signals which determine who plays, and suggests the rhythm and other stylistic aspects of the playing, while allowing the musicians to improvise within these constraints. What is wonderful about the Soundpainting approach, as presented by Dube’s Minimal Thing, is its sheer humour and exuberance. The unexpected stop-and-burst format creates suspense that lends itself to the rhythms of comedy; and its disciplined-freedom, with the accent very much on fun and surprise, is joy-inducing to the audience, and very obviously highly enjoyable for the musicians.

A wonderful conclusion to yet another fantastic, if small-scale Indaba. My only complaint regarding the New Music Indaba is that it is so unknown in public circles, for which the lack of advertising is mostly to blame. The Indabas unfailingly brim with fascinating, exciting music and explorations between forms of music, which always lead to new musical experiences - A must for anyone who loves music!

Another side-project of New Music SA is the bi-annual Unyazi Electronic Music and Art Symposium, which is just as, if not even more, lively and stimulating than the more Classically oriented Indabas. The next Unyazi is due to take place in Cape Town in March 2008

(Background on the ISCM and New Music SA provided by the ‘New Music SA Bulletin’)

‘Reverie’ (created in 2003) marks the first of many later collaborations between director/writer/artist Aryan Kaganof and much-lauded composer/pianist Michael Blake. A fascinating concept, and sublimely executed, the collaboration is based around a solo-piano piece composed by Blake in the mid-Nineties. The concept for their project was, in a sense, a direct inversion of the tradition movie soundtrack audio-visual dynamic. Whereas in traditional soundtracking the music exists to highlight, amplify or contradict the psychological aspects of a movie, to operate as a kind of meta-text to the film; in ‘reverie’ the focus is the music, with the visuals serving to compliment the atmosphere of the piece through subtle shifts of tension and harmony.

Usually when visuals are created to support music, as in Veejaying (where ‘visual dj’s create visuals to accompany songs at electronic dance events and parties), the approach is overtly ‘literal’, or symmetrical, with the visuals merely manipulated to match the rhythm of the music. Here Kaganof has succeeded in making a visual track that embodies all the subtleties of a sophisticated score in its relation to the central piece, here the music. The piece itself is a softly repetitive, simplistically and gently beautiful composition; interestingly, the Shona and San vocals on which the piano melodies are based suggest Oriental influence, which might have influenced Kaganof’s idea for the source-material of his visuals, the mood of the piece, a kind of beautiful, slightly melancholic limbo, certainly did.

His source-material is footage he shot in 2004 of citizens of Jeonju, South Korea, strolling through one of the city’s beloved parks; he describes the frenetic pace of day-to-day Jeonju as “40 times the pace of Joburg..”, which has led to the tradition of Sundays dedicated to languid strolling in these peaceful parks, a literal unwinding. The figures in the camera shots have been manipulated into soft, spilling splotches of form moving to the mood of, as opposed to the rhythm of, Dr Blake’s composition; formal quality of this visual manipulation led one of the viewers to liken it to Impressionism in painting. Certainly the visuals do suggest a slow-spilling painting.

mick raubenheimer

“In composing I work like a filmmaker”
Michael Blake

It was Sunday November 18 at 11am when the Michael Blake Ensemble made its Gauteng debut at UNISA’s ZK Matthews Hall in Pretoria, playing the music of Michael Blake. Michael Blake is himself second pianist in the Ensemble that also includes Jill Richards (first piano) , Magda De Vries (marimba) and Frank Mallows (vibraphone). The composer also personally introduced the eight compositions of his that were performed, including four short pieces for solo piano.

These short pieces the composer himself describes as his “workshop, an opportunity to try out techniques that can be developed in subsequent larger-scale compositions”. As such I think Blake would have done better to leave these flimsy sketches behind and contribute another larger-scale composition to the ensemble. Although Jill Richards is South Africa’s finest interpreter of the contemporary piano book the real strength of the Michael Blake Ensemble lies in its ensemble character. These solo piano pieces didn’t stretch Jill out enough to warrant the solo space she was given to perform them.

And there you have my only niggle about an otherwise entrancing concert. The Sonata For Two Pianos pays homage to Schumann to whom Blake attributes the “invention” of the piano quintet. Hang on, what does a piano quintet have to do with a work for two pianos? Well apparently Blake reversed Brahms’ model and transcribed his earlier Piano Quintet for two pianos. Whether one is versed enough in the classical tradition to follow all of Blake’s musicological witticisms and erudite sleight-of-hands is irrelevant - the writing is superb and prompted the doyenne of South African music writing Muff Andersson, who was sitting next to me, to whisper “I’m sure Blake is left-handed”. When, after the concert was over, I asked her what she meant, she explained that composers usually write the difficult bits for the pianist’s right hand but that Blake had dished out equally difficult material for both hands. Perhaps he is ambidextrous? In fact I’m sure that both pianists get to play so much because the composer was keeping as many of the notes that he composed for piano and string quartet in the two piano transcription as he possibly could. His comment about this “I had quite a job giving all the string quartet music to the pianists, mostly to Jill but also some to myself while keeping the original piano part.”

Ways of the Dance, written in 2003, is scored for piano and marimba and vibraphone, both played by Magdalena De Vries. Here the special texture of the Michael Blake Ensemble begins to be heard. The interplay between piano percussion and percussion percussion is extraordinary. Blake cunningly subverts our sense of the piano’s melodic function by writing for the marimba in a highly pianistic way. The piece is apparently inspired by bushman hunting dances. “when you track an animal you must become the animal. tracking is like dancing; because your body is happy you can feel it in the dance and then you know that the hunting will be good.” The quote sheds interesting light on how piano and marimba seem to intertwine and occasionally take each other’s roles over, then slip back, or slip forward i should say, into their own musical territory. One is constantly confronted with the question, which is the hunter? Which the hunted? The piece works admirably on this level, and could almost be described as programmatic, so clearly does it illustrate in musical terms a philosophical paradox. However it does make its point well within the alloted 15minutes and one feels that some judicious editing on behalf of the composer would have allowed a more concise and hence Darwinian composition to emerge.

38a Hill Street Blues was the concert’s opener and a very fine introduction to the Ensemble it is. Magda and Frank get to work out on a mash up between honky tonk stride piano and uhadi bow music of the xhosa in the eastern cape. No i didn’t make that description up, it’s from the programme notes. If i hadn’t read them i would have described the piece as “two early downtown new york minimalists on crack”. And yes, that means i liked it very much.

The musical high point of the morning’s concert was cleverly programmed as the climax, and it really was a perfect case of leaving the best for last. Shoowa Panel, written this year, exhibits Michal Blake’s enthusiasm for traditional african weaving. Unlike Ways Of The Dance, the 12 minutes of Shoowa Panel really didn’t feel like they were enough, it is the sort of mesmerising exercise in repetitions that could go on and on and on. The marimba and vibraphone interlock tensely and then effortlessly, seducing and then jarring, creating an aural shimmer that absolutely does bring to mind the optical effect shown in the photograph of the shoowa panel above. Blake quotes John Gillow’s book about african textiles and i have replaced “embroideress” with “composer” in order to give an insight into how Blake himself sees his approach to composition. “All the patterns come from the imagination of the composer and can change as the work progresses… although there may be one dominant motif, which defines that part of the composition, it is likely that the motif will change as it spreads across the composition in time.”

Michael Blake is an extremely prolific composer but I think that Shoowa Panel is one of his most important works. Important in that it is a model of the kind of composing he does when he “works like a filmmaker”.

As a filmmaker myself I was forced to ponder the exact meaning of that statement, not just in terms of Blake’s composing process, but of my own. I am a filmmaker because I make films. But do I “work like a filmmaker”? Or indeed, do my films “work like films?” And therefore, how do films “work”? How do filmmakers “work”?

I will leave out my own self-searching on this question for another essay, I believe in the answer to this question lies the solution to the “problem” that audiences often have with my films. But getting back to Blake, I believe there is at least one rigorously defendable way in which his compositions work in a way that could be correctly described as “cinematic”. If one thinks of the optical effect of looking out at a visual plane through a long lens. The four-sided frame of the image remains constant as one pulls the focus of the lens, but the pulling of the focus causes the plane of focus to change within the frame. IN other words, although the frame of our vision remains static our attention is constantly being drawn to different aspects within the field of vision. Focus leads out attention, we follow the focusing device with our eyes and hence the image constantly changes while it always stays the same. Michael Blake in his Shoowa Panel composes sound in a manner analagous to how the long lens works. The repetitive nature of the melodic devices is never quite heard in the same way because of the way it is framed and focused in time. Blake lenses his sounds, and in this way his statement “In composing i work like a filmmaker” is true.

“In composing I work like a filmmaker, using montage technique to construct the music.”
Michael Blake

There is another way that Michael Blake composes like a filmmaker and the sentence above clearly explicates his self-reflexivity. I have written this essay in an attempt to allow the form of the essay to illustrate both Michael Blake’s statement, as well as the notion of how a filmmaker works. In other words, I have consciously edited it. The first quote did not represent the full “picture” as it were, of Michael Blake’s statement. It was a teaser, meant to build suspense. The essay milked as much material out of the teaser as possible. The full sentence then appeared as a denouement, it completed the essay that until then had not seemed to need any completion. It fulfilled an emptiness carefully prepared but of which the audience was unaware, an invisible emptiness. Michael Blake creates the inaudible emptiness in order to fill it with sounds whose gravity deserve to rupture the silence. The final bowed vibraphone notes of the Shoowa Panel don’t come out of nowhere. They come out of a carefully prepared engagement with the shimmering of heatwaves above desert sands transformed via the composer’s lens from the optical to the aural. We are fully focused and as the decay of these celestial notes dies away completely, silence is, perhaps for the first time ever, truly golden.

If the two main trends in 20th century music could be defined by the conceptualists on the one hand and the materialists on the other, then I would probably fall under the latter. Whereas conceptualists start with the idea, and are primarily concerned with the way the music is put together, materialists concentrate on the nature of material itself and try to let the material determine the piece. “Intuitive” may be another way to describe the latter, or Adorno’s phrase “musique informelle” which South African musicologist Stephanus Muller has used to describe some of my pieces. My music takes as its starting point the American and English experimental traditions and frequently fuses this with an African aesthetic, using elements of traditional African music and weaving.

PROGRAMME

1. 38a Hill Street Blues (2000)

Magdalena de Vries marimba
Frank Mallows vibraphone

38a Hill Street Blues owes something to the ‘uhadi’ bow music of the Xhosa in the Eastern Cape where I used to live. It probably owes something to ‘stride’ piano playing (in particular Meade Lux Lewis’ Honky Tonk Train Blues) which I listened to a lot in my teens. The title possibly owes something to an American television series, but was in fact my home address. I wrote the piece, in the desert in Namibia during January 2000, at the request of Marcel Worms for his ongoing “New Blues for Piano” project. He gave the first performance in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam on 25 March 2000. I made this transcription for marimba and vibraphone in 2003 and it was premiered at the Brighton Festival in 2004. It lasts about 4 minutes.

2. Ways of the Dance (2003)

Jill Richards piano
Magdalena de Vries marimba/vibraphone

“When you track an animal you must become the animal. Tracking is like dancing; because your body is happy you can feel it in the dance and then you know that the hunting will be good.”

This description of hunting by !Nqate Xqamxebe of the !Xo San (Bushmen) in the central Kalahari was the initial inspiration for Ways of the Dance, after I saw the Foster Brothers’ film The Great Dance (beautiful images, lousy music). I tried to evoke something of the fragility of life for this sadly vanishing group of Southern African inhabitants.

Ways of the Dance was written for Ancuza Aprodu and Thierry Miroglio who gave the first performance on 24 May 2003 at Tage der Neuen Musik, Bamberg, Germany. It lasts about 15 minutes.

Dotted Crotchet = 48
Adagissimo
Scherzando

Jill Richards and Michael Blake pianos

The idea of writing a piano quintet was proposed by the Fitzwilliam’s violist Alan George a few years ago. After the initial performances of my First String Quartet (In memory of William Burton) - in South Africa, Europe and the USA in 2001/2 – I mentioned that I had an idea for a second quartet. But Alan thought I should do as Shostakovich had done before and write a piano quintet next - and also as the Russian composer had done, I should play the piano in it myself. I warned Alan of the dangers of closely following the Shostakovich model: there could be not one more, but maybe another 14 string quartets!

While the piano quintet tradition does not go back as far as the 18th century, it includes at least half a dozen landmarks, the first of course being the Schumann with which the composer single-handedly “invented” this medium. So in my piece I chose to pay homage to Schumann and his Piano Quintet in E flat Op 44 of 1842 in particular. While his piece does not challenge the conventions of the form too much, he creates moments – for example harmonic passages and textures – that are outside the conventions of the time. In a sense, therefore, I am paying homage to the creative impulse to break away from tradition.

My Piano Quintet, completed in the first six weeks of 2006, is in only three movements - a substantial first movement based on the rhythmic proportion of 4:3 – a particularly African one, a gentle restless Adagissimo and a very short crazy Scherzo – with a total playing time of about 21 minutes. As Shostakovich did before when he worked with the Beethoven Quartet of Moscow, I wrote the string music with the individual members of the Fitzwilliam Quartet very much in mind. And as Schumann did to Clara before, I have dedicated the piece to my wife, Christine Lucia, whose research interests serendipitously include the chamber music of Robert Schumann.

I gave the first performance with the Fitzwilliam Quartet in the concert hall of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge on 30 April 2006. A year later I decided to reverse Brahms’ model, and transcribe the piece for two pianos. The first performance of this version was given by Jill Richards and myself in the Baxter Concert Hall, Cape Town on 25 September 2007.

The score is prefaced with a poem by W G Sebald:

Feelings

my friend
wrote Schumann
are stars
which guide us
only under
a dark sky

Nightsongs (1997-99)
BWV Fragments (1999)
Remembering Stravinsky…Morges, Autumn 2001
Their Souls Go Waltzing On (2004)

Jill Richards piano

Each of these 9 short piano pieces, composed independently over a period of about nine years, has a connection with an earlier composer, sometimes even drawing on that composer’s music: Bach (2 pieces), Satie (3 pieces), Ives/Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Cole Porter and Meade Lux Lewis. They could be portraits or homages or reflections; but in any event these are all composers whose work has been important for my own composition. I think of these short pieces as my workshop, an opportunity to try out techniques that can be developed in subsequent larger-scale compositions.

Nightsongs takes apart, and then puts together differently, all the Cole Porter songs I know with “night” in the title plus the very chromatic I concentrate on you. The music inhabits a strange, almost expressionist world, unlike anything I’d written in more than twenty years, with fragments of Porter sometimes fleetingly remembered. I started it in London in March 1997 to play on a concert tour, but only managed to reach the double barline two years later in Grahamstown where I gave the first performance in the Beethoven Room on 5 August 1999. (Duration: c.3.5 minutes)

BWV Fragments was composed in June 1999 on the occasion of Ishbel Sholto-Douglas’ retirement from Rhodes University Music Department. Her life-long passion for Bach’s Cello Suites, which she first introduced to me when I was an undergraduate at Wits University close to three decades before, led me to use them as the source material for this little tribute. I cut and pasted, transposed and superimposed, and deliberately misread clefs, but every single note came from Bach. The first performance was given by Jill Richards in the Beethoven Room, Grahamstown on 16 May 2002. (Duration: c.1 minute)

Remembering Stravinsky… Morges, Autumn 2001 was composed in Switzerland in October 2001 while I was staying just outside Lausanne in the town of Morges, where Stravinsky had lived from 1914-1920 and composed L’Histoire du Soldat and Les Noces. Visiting his house (now the head office of Swatch), and looking out the windows at views he might have enjoyed, inspired me to write a memorial piece to that most resourceful of twentieth century composers. I worked every morning in the tranquillity of Paulette Robert’s beautiful garden and dedicated my piece to her. By a remarkable coincidence she had spent some of her childhood years in an apartment in the “Stravinsky house”. The first performance was given by Jill Richards in the Beethoven Room, Grahamstown on 16 May 2002. (Duration: c.4 minutes)

Their souls go waltzing on was requested by Slovakian composer Daniel Matej for the “Tone Roads Project”, commemorating the 130th anniversary of the births of Charles Ives and Arnold Schoenberg. In the spirit of the request I appropriated some fragments of material from Ives’ Three-Page Sonata and Schoenberg’s Five Piano Pieces Op 23. I remembered that the Ives work opens with the timeless B-A-C-H motif and on reading through the Schoenberg found it hidden away in various guises. What a perfect opportunity to include JS Bach in the manipulation of these daylight-robbed materials! Taking a cue from Op 23: No 5 (the Waltz) and the March sections in the Ives, I came up with a kind of march-waltz … or a waltz-march? The first performance was given by Daan Vandewalle during the Evenings of New Music, Bratislava on 26 November 2004. (Duration: c.2.5 minutes)

Magdalena de Vries marimba
Frank Mallows vibraphone

My enthusiasm for traditional African weaving developed in the 1970s about the same time as I was discovering the many facets of traditional African music. I was asked to create some music for an early SABC documentary film on weaving, and came up with a piece for harpsichord based on mbira patterns, which I subsequently orchestrated as Ground Weave.

In his phenomenally beautiful book on African textiles, John Gillow describes how the Shoowa, a northern group of the Kuba, in the Congo, decorated their skirts with cut-pile details:

“In the early 20th century Catholic nuns encouraged Shoowa women to use this technique more extensively; in addition to details on skirts, they sewed a large number of panels, usually square, which were used as dowry payments, shrouds, chair and floor coverings, and as symbols of wealth and status. Each geometric design – whether rectilinear, crosses and crotchets, chevrons or squares – is embroidered on a raphia panel and grows, almost organically, across the fabric.

“Nothing is drawn on the raphia panel before stitching commences. All the patterns comes from the imagination of the embroideress and can change as the work progresses…Although there may be one dominant motif, which defines that part of the embroidery, it is likely that the motif will change as it spreads across the panel.” (Gillow, J. 2003. African Textiles: Colour and Creativity across a Continent. London Thames & Hudson: 196)

This description of weaving by Gillow resonates uncannily with the way I like to approach composition, while the actual patterning and asymmetry of these panels is something I’ve tried to absorb into my work over a number of years.

Shoowa Panel was commissioned by Frank Mallows who, with Magdalena de Vries, gave the first performance in the Baxter Concert Hall, Cape Town on 25 September 2007. Shoowa Panel lasts about 12 minutes.

Jill Richards piano Magda de Vries marimba
Frank Mallows vibraphone Michael Blake piano

“Michael Blake se werk sing onder musici se hande.” (Review of their CT concert, Burger, Sept 2007)

Sunday 18 November at 11h00
ZK Matthews Hall, Pretoria

Programme
Michael Blake 38a Hill Street Blues (vibes & marimba)
Ways of the Dance (piano & percussion)
Sonata for Two Pianos (Homage to Schumann)
Four Piano Pieces
Shoowa Panel (vibes & marimba)

Michael Blake’s music takes as its starting point the American and English experimental traditions and fuses this with an African aesthetic, using elements of traditional African music and weaving. 38a Hill Street Blues draws on uhadi bow music and stride piano; Ways of the Dance was inspired by !Nqate Xqamxebe’s description of hunting by the the !Xo Bushmen; the Sonata for Two Pianos pays homage to Schumann’s ‘Piano Quintet Op 44’ and to the creative impulse to break away from tradition; the Four Piano Pieces from a larger collection of short ‘workbench’ pieces, all have a connection with other composers (Bach, Stravinsky, Ives, Schoenberg and Cole Porter); and Shoowa Panel was inspired by a cloth woven by the Shoowa, a northern group of the Kuba, in the Congo, who decorate their skirts and panels with cut-pile details: each geometric design – whether rectilinear, crosses and crotchets, chevrons or squares – is embroidered on a raphia panel and grows, almost organically, across the fabric.

www.michaelblake.co.za
www.jillrichards.com

Information and Bookings: UNISA Music Foundation 012 429 3344

“reverie is an exceedingly lovely work, its slowness repetitions
and unfolding.”

this review appeared in business day 9/10/2007

Jill Richards piano
Magda de Vries marimba
Frank Mallows vibraphone
Michael Blake piano

Sunday 18 November at 11h00
ZK Matthews Hall, Pretoria

Programme
Michael Blake 38a Hill Street Blues (vibes & marimba)
Ways of the Dance (piano & percussion)
Sonata for Two Pianos (Homage to Schumann)
Four Piano Pieces
Shoowa Panel (vibes & marimba)

www.michaelblake.co.za
www.jillrichards.com

Information and Bookings: UNISA Music Foundation 012 429 3344

michael blake’s piano concerto enjoys the alternate title “rain dancing” and as the composer noted in his all too brief introduction to the world premiere performance of the work by the johannesburg philharmonic orchestra at the linder auditorium last night “it hasn’t rained this much in gauteng in october for years”.

the comment might have been made in jest but it actually gives an acute insight into what michael blake really is. a shaman. his componistic practices derive in equal parts from cinema editing and sculpture. he works with his computer timeline as a fine artist would, shaping and teasing form into wry, elfin sets of sound that skip away from balance and artfully elude perfection. there is a willful perversity in blake’s approach to sound. it’s as if he knows exactly what we would like to hear a motif develop into and instead of feeding us what we want he conjures up possibilities that are maddeningly close to our own sense of resolution but never quite get there.

blake is a carrot dangler and his sometimes fey, sometimes wistful melodies encourage us to hum, to whistle, and even occasionally, to jig - but never in a way that would actually release the tension that his compositions ever so gradually build towards.

the premiere performance of the work suffered slightly from a disparity in volume between the brass and piano, which tended to get drowned out too often, but intriguingly the rain concerto’s most memorable sections occur when percussion and strings talk to each other and the climax of the work is a full on joburg thunder storm. one expects the cavalry to charge, cannons blazing.

on the way to this zesty climax there’s a great deal of repetitive phrasing but it isn’t the kind of austere minimalism we know from steve reich or the agonizingly empty on and on-ness of philip glass; michael blake’s shamanism evokes the giddy swirling of the baal shem tov on shabbas, tossing back the vodkas and merrily dancing his praises to hashem. if you could imagine the most playful rigour or the most rigorous playfulness then you would be some way towards appreciating this shamanistic invocation by michael blake that demands to be described as drunken minimalism. rain on!

aryan kaganof

This Wednesday, 17 October, Jill Richards gives the world premiere of Michael Blake’s Piano Concerto Rain Dancing, with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Cleobury.

The concert, also including works by Debussy, Ravel and Beethoven, is repeated on Thursday 18 October. Both concerts start at 20h00 in the Linder Auditorium, Johannesburg. Booking at Computicket.

The composer will introduce the work at 19h15 each evening. He describes the piece as follows:

“This piece has what one expects in a piano concerto: a clear structure, recognizably recurring harmonies, quite complex polyrhythmic layering, lush orchestral textures with lavish percussion, a dazzling virtuoso piano part, and tunes that you can whistle as you leave the concert hall. Yet this is not a conventional ‘classical’ or ‘romantic’ concerto.

“In composing I work rather like a filmmaker, using montage technique to construct the music. I don’t use the word ‘theme’ because I don’t ‘do’ themes and then develop them in the traditional way, but you will however find traditional and popular South African musics are woven into or referenced in this piece.”

Even in advance of its premiere this music has brought some of the best rains in Gauteng for several years!

Blake has had a string of premieres in recent weeks, including Shoowa Panel for vibraphone and marimba, part of a retrospective concert at the South African College of Music in Cape Town; Reverie, an audiovisual piece in collaboration with Aryan Kaganof; and Rural Arias for singing saw and 11 players at the Arnold Schoenberg Centre in Vienna a fortnight ago. Mary Jordan wrote of that performance in Business Day:

“Blake has nothing to prove and plenty to say…the work is a magnificent, craggy lament for South Africa’s rural population, feeling the devastating effects of climate change, poverty and HIV/Aids.”

www.michaelblake.co.za
www.jillrichards.com
www.nicholascleobury.net
www.jpo.co.za

This piece has what one expects in a piano concerto: a clear structure, recognizably recurring harmonies, quite complex polyrhythmic layering, lush orchestral textures with lavish percussion, a dazzling virtuoso piano part, and tunes that you can whistle as you leave the concert hall. Yet this is not a conventional ‘classical’ or ‘romantic’ concerto.

The structure was mostly not pre-determined. There are two cyclic forms (common in African and minimalist music), interwoven throughout most of the piece. One is based on the two-chord structure of traditional African bow music, the other is a sequence of four chords most often articulated by the brass. Although the concerto was composed as one 22-minute sweep, three sections are discernible: a quieter ‘slow’ movement starts halfway followed by a faster and louder finale, although the joins of the three movements are blurred. The material of the slow movement is very different from the outer two; more reflective and with lighter orchestration.

In composing I work like a filmmaker, using montage technique to construct the music. The tunes are used in different environments each time they return, so they are never quite the same. I don’t use the word ‘theme’ because I don’t ‘do’ themes and then develop them in the traditional way, but you will however find traditional and popular South African musics are woven into or referenced in this piece.

The concerto was written as a present for Jill Richards, the South African composer’s Best Friend. She has been playing my music all over the world for many years as she has other South African composers, and has recently recorded a CD of my complete solo pieces. So it was a surprise to me that this turned out to be the first piece I’d written especially for her!

MB, July 2007

Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra

gives the world premiere of

Michael Blake’s

PIANO CONCERTO
(Rain Dancing) (2006)

Soloist: Jill Richards
Conductor: Nicholas Cleobury

Linder Auditorium, Johannesburg

17 and 18 October 2007 at 20:00

www.michaelblake.co.za

Reverie (1996; rev. 1999)

The score is prefaced with lines from Olive Schreiner’s novel ‘Story of an African Farm’: … “of the joy of the dreamer no man knoweth but he who dreameth … without phantoms and dreams man cannot exist.” The musical material is derived from two vocal sources, one Shona and one San (Bushman), and is transformed by repetition and extension, superimposition and distortion. Meanwhile, having revised the work early in 1999, I subsequently noticed many fascinating parallels with the techniques of San rock painting during a visit to the remarkable paintings at Tandjesberg, near Ladybrand in the Free State. The coda was inspired by listening to a whole weekend of concerts of Charles Ives in London. (Michael Blake)

Filmmaker-composer relationships are usually predicated on the film maker composing image sequences that the composer scores music for. Music is fundamentally an addendum in this process - at best an amplifier, at worst an afterthought. In Reverie the relationship is reversed. My brief to myself was to compose an image sequence that would focus attention on the shifting patterns of the two pianos. The image serves to enhance the listening experience without falling into the trap of trying to “illustrate” the music. Reverie was the first of a series of fruitful collaborations with Dr Blake, that include his soundtrack score for the feature film SMS Sugar Man (2007) and the upcoming opera of Etienne Leroux’ classic Afrikaans novel Sewe Dae By Die Silbersteins. (Aryan Kaganof)

new music indaba, university of south africa, pretoria/tshwane
Day 1: Wednesday 10 October
14:00-14:45 (showing till Friday 12 October)
Opening of Audiovisual Installation
Aryan Kaganof & Michael Blake Reverie (2003) ***
Gerhard Marx & Clare Loveday The Collision Project (2006)
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

Day 1: Wednesday 10 October

10:00-12:30 Forum: South Africa’s Instrumental Voices
Chair: Chris Walton (University of Pretoria)
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

13:00-14:00 Blender
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

14:00-14:45 (showing till Friday 12 October)
Opening of Audiovisual Installation
Aryan Kaganof & Michael Blake Reverie (2003) ***
Gerhard Marx & Clare Loveday The Collision Project (2006)
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

15:00-17:00
Composers Workshop 1
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

18:00-19:00
Opening Concert: Songs of Africa Max de Vries marimba
Peter Klatzow Song for Stephanie Martin Scherzinger Chorale: Afrika**
Keiko Abe Memories of the Seashore Matthias Schmitt Ghanaia
Toshi Ichiyanagi Portrait of Forest Robert Fokkens Sounding Fire
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: R50 (R25 students)

19:00
Reception & Meet the Artist
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

Day 2: Thursday 11 October

10:00-12:30
Composers Masterclass 1 Schubert Ensemble
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

14:00-14:45
NewMusicSA Annual General Meeting
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

15:00-17:00
Composers Workshop 2
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa

Day 3: Friday 12 October

10:00-12:30
Composers Masterclass 2 Schubert Ensemble
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: Free

13:00-14:00
Stefans Grové 85th Birthday Celebration Jill Richards piano
Kevin Volans Happiness is a Warm Gun Bunita Marcus Julia
Stefans Grové Five Glimpses Robert Fokkens Solitudes**
Karlheinz Stockhausen Klavierstück IX
Venue: Musaion, Univerrsity of Pretoria Entrance: R50 (R25 students)

14:30-17:00
Composers Masterclass 3 Jill Richards and Stefans Grové
Venue: Musaion, Univerrsity of Pretoria Entrance: Free

18:00-19:00
The Minimal Thing Marc Duby director
Soundpainting
Venue: Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology, Unisa Entrance: R50 (R25 students)

Day 4: Saturday 13 October

10:00-12:00
Open Rehearsal Schubert Ensemble and Selected Composers
Venue: Sunnyside Concert Hall, Unisa

13:00-14:00
Chamber Music Recital Schubert Ensemble
Martin Butler Sequenza Notturna** Works by Participants in the Composer
Masterclasses*** Howard Skempton Eleven Reflections**Judith Weir Piano Quartet**
Venue: Sunnyside Concert Hall, Unisa Entrance: R50 (R25 students)

15:00-17:00
Composers Workshop 3
Venue: Sunnyside Concert Hall, Unisa

*** World premiere
** South African premiere

Cape Town
Tuesday 25 September, Baxter Concert Hall
Michael Blake Ensemble with Jill Richards, Max de Vries and Frank Mallows
38a Hill Street Blues (2000)/Ways of the Dance (2003) / Sonata for Two Pianos (2007)*/ Shoowa Panel (2007)*
Presented by South African College of Music

Vienna
Tuesday 2 October, Arnold Schoenberg Center
Ensemble Reconsil with Maria Frodl (singing saw) and Roland Freisitzer (conductor)
Rural Arias for Singing Saw and Eleven Players (2007)*

Johannesburg
Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18 October, Linder Auditorium
Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra
with Jill Richards (piano) and Nicholas Cleobury (conductor)
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (Rain Dancing) (2006)*

Pretoria
Sunday 18 November, Z K Matthews Hall
Michael Blake Ensemble with Jill Richards, Max de Vries and Frank Mallows
38a Hill Street Blues (2000)/Ways of the Dance (2003) / Sonata for Two Pianos (2007)*/
Shoowa Panel (2007)*
Presented by Unisa Foundation

www.michaelblake.co.za

NewMusicSA
(South African Section of the ISCM)
proudly announces a forthcoming festival under its auspices…

New Music Indaba 2007

The New Music Indaba has relocated from Grahamstown (in the winter) to Tshwane (in the spring) and the 8th edition of this experimental and innovative festival will take place from 10-13 October 2007 at the University of South Africa (Sunnyside Campus) and the University of Pretoria’s Musaion.

The New Music Indaba will consist of four days of masterclasses and workshops for composers, with international artists in residence The Schubert Ensemble of London and South African pianist Jill Richards, and guest composer Stefans Grové. Plus concerts of new works and improvisation, installations and videos, and a mini-conference on composition.

Festival presented in collaboration with Department of Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology, Unisa and Department of Music, University of Pretoria, and sponsored by Unisa Foundation and SAMRO Endowment for the National Arts.

Information: www.newmusicsa.org.za

POW Ensemble at the Unyazi festival. The first festival for electronic music in Africa. Johannesburg September 2005

This is a collage of two pieces, made by Kaganof.

Line up:

Luc Houtkamp, Matthew Ostrowski (computers), Burkhard Stangl (guitar), Marc Duby (bass), students from Wits Jazz department

Director: Aryan Kaganof (edited because of youtubes 10 minutes maximum)