Mzansi's Other Voices

At Radcliffe, Bongani Ndodana-Breen RI '20 is completing a book that challenges entrenched notions on the value of indigenous African culture in the discourse on South African classical music and its historic lack of representation of black composers. His research offers a rarely explored Afrocentric view on South African composition during apartheid to the dawn of democracy with a reflection on the impact of the current decolonization debate stemming from the #RhodesMustFall movement. Alongside the book, Ndodana-Breen will complete a new orchestral work exploring the indigenous African techniques and practices explored in his research, offering a creative context to some of the commentary by such scholars as V. Kofi Agawu, Akin Euba, J.H. Kwabena Nketia, and Martin Scherzinger.

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