"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.

The topic of exile is of great significance in South African and European music of the twentieth century, as the political situations of Apartheid and the Second World War (to name only two instances) caused many migrations. Exile is, however, not only limited to experiences of political oppression: exile could be forced or voluntary (or combinations of both), as well as physical and/or spiritual. 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’. Although these conditions of exile are universal, and enable a geographically and historically wide-ranging discussion, exile can be seen as a topos of South African cultural, and specifically musical, production.

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. Members of the public are welcome and attendance is free. To reserve a place please send an e-mail to dpt@johannesburg.goethe.org

Programme:

Wednesday 27 January 2010
Time Description
09:00 Welcome and introduction
Session 1: Exile, Literature and Music
Session chair: Dr Jean-Pierre de la Porte
09:15 Muff Andersson
The nomad sings, the nomad walks, the nomad rests: the ‘condition’ of exile
09:35 Matildie Thom-Wium
‘My country, my dry, forsaken country’:
On exile in Arnold van Wyk’s, NP van Wyk Louw’s and Ovid’s Tristia
09:55 Pamela Tancsik
Joseph Trauneck or the Wanderings of a Persecuted Man
10:15 Questions/comments/discussion
10:45 – Tea –
Session 2: Identities
Session chair: Matildie Thom Wium
11:15 Michael Haas
From Bach to Schönberg: How “German” was music from fin de Siècle Vienna?
12:05 Xoli Norman
The paradox of exile and the creative state
12:25 Stephanie Vos
Interpreting the notion of nationality in the case of John Joubert
12:45 Questions/comments/discussion
13:15 – Lunch –
Session 3: In conversation
14:00 Stephanus Muller, Steve Dyer, Warrick Sony, Michael Blake and Mokale Koapeng
Discussion panel
15:30 – Tea –
Session 4: Exile in composition and performance
Session chair: Dr Stephanus Muller
16:00 Jean-Pierre de la Porte
Exile on the spot: how does one recognize minor music?
16:30 Pre-concert talk by Mokale Koapeng (on Moerane)
The problem with Mosoeu Michael Moerane
17:00 Keynote address: Timothy Jackson
Biographical and Analytical Perspectives on Friedrich Hartmann's Song of the Four Winds
18:00 – Symposium ends –
20:00 Concert at the Linder Auditorium - Moerane, Hartmann and Mozart
Thursday 28 January 2010
Time Description
  Session 5: Perspectives
Session chair: Aryan Kaganof
14:15 Christine Lucia
The smell of a grass fire
14:35 Chats Devroop
Emotional displacement amongst South African Jazz Musicians who stayed behind
14:55 Mokale Koapeng
Composing in South Africa
10:00 Questions/comments/discussion
10:20 – Tea –
  Session 6: People
Session chair: Prof. Christine Lucia
10:50 Performers workshop:
Timothy Jackson in conversation with Thomas Sanderling
Hartmann's Song of the Four Winds
11:40 Aryan Kaganof
Blue Notes from Johnny
12:00 Chris van Rhyn
The wingless flight – A consideration of Priaulx Rainier and her Requiem in the context of exile
12:40 Colette Szymczak
Jonas Gwangwa, musician and cultural activist
13:00 Questions/comments/discussion
13:30 – Lunch –
  Session 7: Places
Session chair: Dr Chats Devroop
09:00 David Coplan
S.A. Jazz in Exile: Exporting Sophiatown and District 6
09:20 Hilde Roos
Opera in exile: the Eoan Group
09:40 Gwen Ansell with Steve Dyer
So close to home: South African jazz in African exile
15:15 Questions/comments/discussion
15:45 Closing remarks
16:00 – Symposium ends –
Map

Directions:

Goethe-Institut Johannesburg
119 Jan Smuts Avenue
Off Newport Road
Parkwood 2193
Postal Adress:
Private Bag X18
Parkview 2122
Johannesburg, South Africa
phone: +27 11 4423232
fax +27 11 4423738
info@johannesburg.goethe.org
www.goethe.de/johannesburg

By Car:
119 Jan Smuts Avenue, corner Newport Road

Directions:

FROM SOUTH:
Coming the M1 from Newtown northbound towards N1/Pretoria/Sandton:

FROM NORTH:
Coming the M1 from Sandton/Pretoria southbound towards Johannesburg City Center: