Mzilikazi Khumalo
2018-09-28
The current anthem was officially adopted in
1997
In 1994, it was initially proclaimed that South Africa would
have two national anthems – namely Nkosi Sikelel’iAfrika and Die Stem. In 1996,
former President Nelson Mandela called for the two to be combined and
shortened, thereby forming the national anthem we know today, which was adopted
in the Government Gazette No. 18341, dated 10 October 1997.
It contains the languages of the 5 most populous
of SA’s eleven official languages
The South African anthem contains four stanzas which consist
of 5 of our eleven official languages – namely isiXhosa, isiZulu, seSotho,
Afrikaans and English.
The melody of the song was arranged by two
people
Although the arrangement of the melody is widely accredited
to Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph, a renowned composer, pianist and teacher, the South
African anthem was also arranged, in part, by Mzilikazi Khumalo, a composer
and Professor of African Languages. While Khumalo was tasked with arranging the
first half of the anthem, Zaidel-Rudolph arranged the last half of the piece
and also wrote the English section of the song.
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