Mokale Koapeng's ‘Malatsi A Bosha’ 'was premiered in October, at the Unisa Music Foundation.'

[Mokale Koapeng and SDASA Chorale]

Mokale Koapeng is a prominent South African choral director and composer who sends us news periodically. Here are three excerpts are from his latest dispatch:

“My three movement suite for a youth string orchestra was premiered in October, at the Unisa Music Foundation. The work is called ‘Malatsi A Bosha’ – Days Of Thy Youth.”

“My group, SDASA Chorale, the one that features in the Simunye CD, will be going to Edmonton, Alberta in Canada next month. We are going to spend three weeks in Edmonton.”

“I have just completed a work for choir, soloists and orchestra for the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival. The artistic director of the festival is German concert pianist Florian Uhlig. The festival will be in January.”

Regards

Mokale Koapeng

Johannesburg International Mozart Festival: 'Music and Exile: North-South Narratives' Jan. 27-28

[Mokale Koapeng is a presenter at the Symposium]

http://www.join-mozart-festival.org/pages/symposium.html
“Musical Hemispheres"
Symposium
“MUSIC AND EXILE: NORTH-SOUTH NARRATIVES”
27 January 2010 9.00 a.m. – 6.00 p.m.
28 January 2010 9.00 a.m. – 4.00 p.m.
Goethe Institut Johannesburg

“This year is seeing the introduction of a Symposium as a new scheme to the Johannesburg International Mozart Festival. The Symposium will present an informative and thought-provoking extension of the 16 music concerts – an opportunity to explore the context of “Musical Hemispheres” as this year’s theme. 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 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 and composers, and covers a wide variety of music, including Western art music, jazz, South African traditional and folk music.

“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’.”

“Some of the prominent presenters who will present papers at the symposium include Tim Jackson (University of North Texas), Michael Haas (Jewish Museum, Vienna) and Stephanus Muller (Stellenbosch University), Mokale Koapeng and David Coplan (University of the Witwatersrand). There will also be discussions with composers and performers.” [Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1909-1981) was a South African composer, pianist and choral director. He was the first Black Music graduate of a South African University, and is profiled at AfriClassical.com]