On this week’s episode of African Voices, CNN International travels with Bongani Ndodana-Breen on his journey to the United States of America to hear one of his most important compositions for the very first time.
The South African composer speaks of his intentions to write classical music with an African twist because, as he says: “My Africa is creative. My Africa is original and full of ideas.”
Bongani Ndodana-Breen explains that his upbringing and city helped to create a musical love which would set him on the path to becoming a composer: “I was born on the Eastern Cape in Queenstown, which is a very curious city…because it was a very musical city in South Africa.” Ndodana-Breen goes on to explain how, with the encouragement of family members and the help of his school, he soon realised how much he enjoyed music: “My great aunt who was my grandmother’s sister, I remember her lifting me up and putting me up the piano. I didn’t know what this thing was… but it just seemed to be something I was very much drawn too… I went to Saint Andrew’s in Grahamstown where I did piano, played in the orchestra. I think they unleashed this evil on the world by allowing me to compose, and I haven’t stopped ever since.”
Having composed many well-known pieces one work Ndodana-Breen is particularly proud of was Winnie’s Opera, based on the life of the late Winnie Mandela. Described as a passion project, Ndodana- Breen speaks proudly of the late South African anti-apartheid activist and politician: “Winnie’s life, it’s an extraordinary one. What she went through is just heart-breaking… For over three decades, 27 years that the world did not hear about Nelson Mandela… There was one woman who was hell-bent on making sure this man had the chance to run this country, that had to be kept alive, and she did it.”
Ndodana-Breen’s current project, Harmonia Ubuntu, focuses on some of the writings and speeches of Nelson Mandela: “One of the things about Nelson Mandela is a lesson in courage, but also the courage to stand up for our common humanity, or the spirit of ubuntu that one’s humanities linked to the humanity of others. So, we explore that a great deal in the work.”
As a composer, Ndodana- Breen believes he can inspire other Africans by informing them of the music linked to their culture: “This is like an extraordinary way of engaging with the audience, telling them about the culture that the music is actually rooted in.”
Bongani Ndodana-Breen’s journey to America allowed him to listen to his music being conducted for the first time by Grammy award winner, Maestro Osmo Vänskä. Maestro Vänskä is taking the Minnesota Orchestra on a tour of South Africa and selected Ndodana-Breen’s work to feature in the concerts. Speaking about Ndodana-Breen’s work, the Maestro tells CNN: “It’s technically [a] very difficult piece, it’s a lot of fast notes and written which are like in a way controversial… but when we can play it really together, it gives this kind of nice dancing feeling… This is new for these musicians in terms of cultural traditions, this is not the usual stuff that they have played… it’s going to come together.”
Speaking about the pleasure that composing brings, Bongani Ndodana- Breen, says: “To be creating things and to be adding rather than subtracting to the human experience and to human knowledge, and to somehow be providing comfort and solace… that gives me great joy as a composer.”
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