The Latest at Goethe

Young people in South Africa rarely have equal opportunities. It’s different, though, in the MIAGI Youth Orchestra and the MIAGI Youth Big Band: young talent from all parts of the country and of society play together here. Last week, both ensembles were guests in Germany.

Classical music in South Africa – is it the privilege of the prosperous white upper class? Abel Selaocoe doesn’t think so. The 16-year-old comes from Sebokeng Township near Johannesburg and plays cello in the MIAGI Youth Orchestra. “The people think that I, as a black, ought to play Kwela music or Hip-Hop. But I know I was destined to play classical music and become a professional orchestra musician.” Music allows Abel to enter another world. “The music, the orchestra – they unite us to a whole: we give each other energy.”

MIAGI Youth Orchestra

Gideon Nxumalo: Jazz Fantasia (MP3, 4:15 Min.)
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Music as a connecting element is the idea behind MIAGI – Music is a Great Investment. The initiative was founded in 1999 by South African tenor Robert Brooks. After pursuing his own career for 20 years in Europe, he wanted to do something for young musicians in his own country. In Cape Town, he organized MIAGI as an international music festival uniting classical, jazz and South African music traditions. The MIAGI Festival has been held annually since 2001 and every year music greats like Miriam Makeba, Maxim Vengerov and the English Chamber Orchestra get involved.

Brooks puts a good part of his energies into promoting young musical talent. “Music has an incredible impact. Studies show that musical education, especially when begun early, hugely improves abstract thinking skills. Above and beyond that, music has a positive effect on personal development and social skills.” Through music, MIAGI opens up opportunities to young people to make use of their creativity and thus improve their social and professional opportunities. MIAGI funds music workshops and provides young musicians with instruments, in particular in socially disadvantaged parts of the country.

Every year, MIAGI invites young musicians from all over the country to a one-week orchestral workshop, where they work on a concert with internationally renowned conductors. They come together from all over and within this short time grow to an organic whole; in the orchestra and big band. They also master a demanding repertoire. This year they are playing, under the direction of the Italian conductor Marino Formenti, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3 and Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 New World Symphony and the Jazz Fantasia by Gideon Nxumalo. The South African musician, composer and fine artist is one of the nation’s biggest music heroes, yet many of his works have not been performed since his early death in 1969.

Together with the Goethe-Institut South Africa, MIAGI has now commissioned a new arrangement of his best-known composition Jazz Fantasia from the year 1962. In his works, Nxumalo combined various musical styles: classical, swing and big band elements and African rhythms. South African pianist Denzil Weale has newly arranged the piece. Written for symphony orchestra and big band, Jazz Fantasia puts the cumulative power of over 120 musicians on the stage.

The MIAGI Youth Orchestra and the MIAGI Youth Big Band were guests in Germany last week. Following a concert in the Kongress Palais Stadthalle in Kassel on 12 August 2009, the ensembles performed on 14 August 2009 at the international youth orchestral festival Young Euro Classics in Berlin. In return, the German Bundesjugendorchester will tour South Africa in late August. They have also included the Jazz Fantasia in their repertoire and will perform it in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town and other cities.

Exchange and cooperation among young musicians from different social and cultural backgrounds in the basic idea behind MIAGI. “MIAGI stands for ‘Music is a Great Investment,’ and music really is,” says Abel Selaocoe. “I meet such different people here and learn so much from them. But I will never forget where I come from.”