The International Classical Music Festival, now in its third year, has been an effective and, at times, overpowering tool in the search for our cultural roots and identity.
As many people living in this country know, it might still take a generation or two before a feeling of inclusivity is a solid part of our psyches. As long as political agendas stay part and parcel of the urge and mechanics to establish one nation that will thrive culturally, spontaneity will keep evading us.
A bigger representation of corporate and private sponsorship could turn the tables. As it stands now, the festival is suffering under the weight of being too transparently politically correct. The political involvement is massive. It’s about time South African artists stand up against ideological control of any kind.
Fortunately there is flip side to the coin. The real dynamic of the festival’s activities falls outside the public eye. It is through its educational programmes and the initiation and nurturing of projects that each group’s particular talent and opportunity to perform in public will be enhanced.
The festival commissions new work, encourages cross-over and fusion and puts the tools in place for artists to further their work in unconventional, but dynamic ways. The public events are bold, challenging and vibey.
They are also classical in the sense of being timeless or carrying a spiritual core. The four-city tour of the Swiss jazz pianist Irëne Schweizer and our own drummer Louis Moholo was a case in point — friends and colleagues raved.
The opening gala concert was another matter. It was a trans-cultural experiment, more than warranted, without feeling completely comfortable.
A personal pleasure was the performance of Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph’s Lifecycle by the Ngqoko Women from Lady Frere and hand-picked South African musicians under Hans Huyssen.
Listeners could “read” a lot into its structure and its auditory meaning — even if the soft-grained dynamics of the primordial sound of the solo-singer’s voice could hardly stand up against the Western instruments’ evocation of nature’s sounds. Could it be that the Eastern Cape women felt slightly inhibited by the discipline of Western traditions?
This did not influence Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the English Chamber Orchestra under the Finnish conductor/pianist Ralf Gothoni in their performance of Isak Roux’s arrangements — some of works by Bach, Mozart and Schubert.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo gave us smooth laid-back renderings of their own hits, but Western harmonies, like those in Bach’s Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring, still eludes them.
The English Chamber Orchestra’s concert with piano concerti by Haydn and Mozart, and works by Bartok and Elgar, was a connoisseur’s dream. The premiere of Vevek Ram’s Composition for Sitar, Tabla and Strings was a gem, encompassing the most inventive of Indian inspired musical traditions.
Robert Brooks, artistic director of the festival, his board, sponsors and dozens of helpers, are on track.
The 2004 appetiser printed in the programme, is truly a whammy!