Paul Boekkooi
This year transformation received a boost like never before in the National Youth Orchestra’s (NYO) 37-year history. This weekend’s concerts promise to represent a level of renewed thinking that hasn’t been experienced for many years in the areas of programming and the contracted soloist.
It’s difficult to recall if the NYO ever performed with a singer as soloist. This time it will. He’s the multi award-winning baritone Abel Motsoadi, who is completing his studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. German conductor Bernhard Gueller, who has conducted the orchestra before to great acclaim, will put the young musicians through their paces.
The short list of composers featured is fascinating: works by 25-year-old South African-born Bongani Ndodana, who lives in Canada but is acclaimed all over the northern hemisphere; arias by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; and two songs from Haya, Mntwan’ omkhulu! (Sing Princess!) by the late Mntwana Constance Magogo KaDinuzulu Buthelezi, originally arranged for alto and piano by Mzilikazi Khumalo and Peter Klatzow but now orchestrated by Klatzow for a baritone voice and full orchestra.
In the second half the NYO will play Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No 1 in D Major, aptly nicknamed Titan. This is a challenging showpiece, opening with a pastoral first movement and followed by a peasant dance in the form of a traditional Austrian lndler. The third is an andante, a whimsical paraphrase on the children’s song, the canon Frere Jacques. We hear cynical parodies on the sounds of marching bands, creating a secret but grotesque atmosphere. The stormy finale, a real allegro furioso, calls up further marching themes, but the work ends triumphantly with masterly fanfares culminating in a radiant apotheosis.
But it’s the South African premieres that really stir the appetite. Ndodana is a wonderboy composer with a natural gift second to none. In the four years he lived and worked overseas only a trickle of his output has been heard here. That’s why the world premiere of his African Kaddish for full orchestra will no doubt stun audiences.
Ndodana, who won the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music in 1998, says African Kaddish was commissioned by the South African Music Rights Organisation.
“It’s a piece that cuts to the core. I was astonished at the breadth of the nightmare Aids has unleashed in Africa. The real sufferers are the children and when I was asked to write a piece for the National Youth Orchestra, I decided to focus attention on this. The future of mankind lies with us and what we do to protect and educate our children.”
Ndodana is artistic director of the Ensemble Noir, a Toronto-based institution dedicated to performing and promoting contemporary music. He says the group focuses on works by composers from Africa. “I believe that Africa should contribute to the global trend whereby composers from non-Western cultures like China and India write operas and orchestral works that offer informed perspectives on their native cultures.”
After Motsoadi’s performances of two arias from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, the first half will be concluded by two songs from Princess Magogo’s song cycle. She was the mother of Dr Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the Minister of Home Affairs. The premiere of the version for voice and piano done so magnificently by Sibongile Khumalo and Jill Richards last year counts among a handful of treasures among indigenous music.