Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful world

Titled from the words of the late great South African Musician - Johnny Clegg. This Album is a mixture of music for Flute and Piano and Solo Flute, from composers born all over Africa. With the help of some of my very talented friends and colleagues, we’ve managed to put together a small collection of works that give you a glimpse at some of the music for Flute in Africa. Many of these works are under-played or confined to within the walls of the continent they were composed in.

After months of searching for repertoire, and with the help of many colleagues abroad, I was able to discover that there is a marvellous collection of music out there. The struggle was actually getting my hands on it! In short of hopping on the next plane and searching the multiple libraries myself, I had to resort to some very nicely worded emails asking for help with photocopies. To which the kind-hearted African spirit did not let go unanswered.

Oja Suite - Joshua Uzoigwe

Daniel Jones - Flute Bogdan Sucio - Piano

- Movement 1 - 7:25 - Movement 2 - 2:33 - Movement 3 - 3:06

Republic Suite - J.H Kwabena Nketia

Daniel Jones - Flute Brigitta Sveda - Piano

- Movement 1 - 1:43 - Movement 2 - 2:50 - Movement 3 - 2.46

- Movement 4 - 3.21 - Movement 5 - 2:19

- Movement 6 - 2:21 - Movement 7 - 3:45

Pan en die Nagtegaal - Stefans Grove

Daniel Jones - Flute

- Pan En Die Nagtegaal - 3:38

four antique dances - hurbert du plessis

Daniel Jones - Flute Natanel Grinshtein - Piano

- Movement 1 - 3:55 - Movement 2 - 1:30 - Movement 3 - 2:35

- Movement 4 - 1:18

Birthday encore - David Kosviner

Daniel Jones - Flute

- Birthday Encore - 2:20

Total time: 45 minutes 24 seconds

 The teaM

Click on the beautiful faces to find out more!

Special Thanks to

- Diane Clark - Judy Hall - Andrew Lane - Amore Du Plessis - Liesl Stoltz - Francis Firth -

- George Fazekas - Hendrik Hofmeyr -

More Info

- oja suite -

Joshua Uzoigwe

Oja Flute Suite takes its name from the wooden end blown flute native to the Igbo people of Nigeria.

1. The first movement named Ilulu, refers to the first part of the ukom ceremony called the ilulu nkwa, described by Uzoigwe as the “solo musical lamentation and invocation of the dead, plus the retuning of the drum row” Ilulu’s perpetual variation form, improvisatory sound, and speech-like nature “provides musicians with an adequate means of articulating the intense feelings and emotions certain social-musical events engender in the minds of the people.”

2. The second movement named Ogbe Nkwa comes from the second part of the ukom ritual based on the dance of the Ogbe, a class of the Igbo people. Strict rhythms belies the dance function of this ritual’s music., with pentatonic harmonies, gentle cross-rhythms and sweeping melodic lines.

3. The last movement named A sketch for Flute, was probably named such due to the fact Uzoigwe was plagued with ill health during this time, which probably caused him to rearrange a previous composition, A Sketch for Trombone, as the last movement of the Suite. Giving the piano part D major in the treble and B-flat major in the bass, the sketch shows Uzoigwe’s affinity for contemporary styles.

Joshua Uzoigwe (1946-2005)

Professor Joshua Uzoigwe was born in Umuahia, in Abia State, Nigeria on July, 1 1946. As a child he drummed and played the Oja, a traditional African flute of the Igbo people of Nigeria. He was the recipient of numerous awards in piano performance, music composition and orchestration. He won his first award in piano performance when he was a student at King's College Secondary School in Lagos, Nigeria. Uzoigwe's academic accomplishments and his first major work, Four Igbo Songs, won him a scholarship from the government to continue his musical studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In 1976, he won the prize in composition at the Guildhall School of Music with his Nigerian Dances for Chamber Orchestra. He later studied ethnomusicology with John Blacking at the Queen’s University, in Belfast. A much sort after product, Uzoigwe's works have been performed all over the world by people of diverse cultural and racial backgrounds.

Uzoigwe was a lecturer in the Department of Music at the Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, from 1979–1981, and moved to the Department of Music at the University of Ife as a senior lecturer in 1981. From Ife, he spent a period at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, before being appointed associate professor and head of the Department of Music at the University of Uyo in 1995. In his career Uzoigwe was active both as a composer and as a scholar; his scholarly publications include two books Akin Euba: an introduction to the life and music of a Nigerian composer (1992) and Ukom: a study of African music craftsmanship (1998) as well as articles in various journals. 

- REpublic Suite -

J.H Kwabena Nketia

Republic Suite was written to commemorate Ghana’s first Republic Day which celebrated the country’s independence, and was premiered with Nketia at the keyboard and Charles Simmons on flute before a select audience including the then President Kwami Nkrumah on July 1st, 1960. Each movement is a musical depiction of aspects of Ghana’s independance from Great Britain in 1957.

1. Material based on a phrase from a popular street song by Busia, representing the joys of common people for having achieved independence.

2. Dance in the style of the Francophone countries which surround Ghana.

3. The violent clashes between the Ashanti people during their fight for independence symbolised by a traditional folk tune “I won’t sleep tonight”.

4. An energetic dance of the Ewe people representing the unification of Togo.

5. An Akan children’s play tune originally played on the Bamboo atenteben flute.

6. A tune based on Nketia’s field recordings of a heptatonic (7-tone) flute called the mulizi of the Bashi people of the Congo, an akan tune and a rhythmic piano accompaniment reminiscent of the styles of the Diaspora.

7. Draws upon techniques from both Western and traditional African music in a piano accompaniment alternating between being melodic and the rhythmic percussiveness of African drum patterns, a call and response texture between flute and piano voices, countermelodies, counter rhythms, and parallel harmonies common in Ghanian traditional music combined with common practise harmony.

J.H Kwabena Nketia (1921-2019)

Born in 1921 in Mampong, Ghana. He first trained as a teacher at the Presbyterian Training College, Akropong. On a government scholarship he went to the UK at the age of 23 to attend the University of London from 1944 to 1949, beginning with two years of study in linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies. In 1949 he began three years’ study at Birkbeck College, Univrsity of London and Trinity College of Music, London, obtaining a B.A degree. In 1958 a Rockefeller Fellowship allowed him to go to the United States, where he attended Colombia University (studying with Henry Cowell), Julliard School, and Northwestern University studying musicology and composition.

He was a professor of music at UCLA, University of Pittsburgh and at the University of Ghana, where he began teaching in 1952. In 1992 he founded the International Centre for African Music and Dance, an archive based at the university. Dr Nketia was the recipient of many awards and worked with a number of international cultural organizations, including Unesco’s International Commission for a Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind. Tireless in his scholarship, he delivered lectures at universities on five continents well into his later years and published his last book, “Reinstating Traditional Music in Contemporary Contexts,” in 2016, on the eve of his 95th birthday.

- pan en die nagtegaal -

Stefans Grove

Pan en die Nagtegaal/Pan and the Nightingale. A piece written in 1981 for solo Flute, whilst Grove was still lecturing at the University of Pretoria.

Stefans Grove (1940-2014)

South African composer and teacher. Grové was born in Bethlehem in the Orange Free State. He grew up in Bloemfontein, receiving his first music tuition from his mother, herself a music teacher. He learnt the piano, organ and flute, receiving lessons for the former two from his uncle, the well-known South African musician D. J. Roode. Grové enrolled at the South African College of Music in Cape Town in 1945, where he numbered William Henry Bell, Cameron Taylor and Erik Chisholm amongst his teachers. From 1950 to 1952 he worked as an accompanist for the South African Broadcasting Corporation in Cape Town and wrote occasional reviews for the leading Afrikaans newspaper Die Burger.

In 1953, he became the first South African to be awarded a Fullbright Scholarship. He accordingly moved to the USA, where he studied at Harvard University and the Longy Music School. In America, Grové was taught by Walton Piston and, after winning the Margaret Croft  Scholarship, by Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. In 1957 Grové was appointed to a lectureship in music theory and composition at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore, where he remained, with occasional interruptions, until 1972. He then returned to South Africa and was appointed to the staff of the University of Pretoria.

- Four Antique Dances -

Hurbert du Plessis

These four dance pieces were originally composed for flute and harpsichord as incidental music. The four dances are Siciliano, composed in 1972 for Opperman’s ‘Petriandros van Korinthe’; Tambourin, Sarabande and Gigue, composed in 1974 for Shakespeare’s ‘The Winter’s Tale (in the Afrikaans translation by Erlank).

The four dances were later compiled into a suite to make them more accessible to perform as a single work. The composer adapted the harpsichord part for piano, for this purpose. 

 The first concert performance took place on 17th May 1981 in the Endler Hall, Stellenbosch and was performed by the composer and Eva Tamassy (Flute). This suite, Op.35 is dedicated to her.

Hubert du Plessis (1922-2011)

Hubert du Plessis was born in Malmesbury in the Western Cape on June 7, 1922. A musical prodigy from a young age, he began writing his own piano compositions by the time he was seven years old. In 1940 he enrolled in Stellenbosch University, becoming the first student at the university to graduate with a Bachelor of Music degree.

In 1943 he briefly worked for the South African Broadcasting Company in Cape Town, but soon after accepted a position with the department of music at Rhodes University, where he became a lecturer. From 1951 to 1954, he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and upon his return to South Africa he accepted a teaching position at Stellenbosch University, quickly becoming senior lecturer of the music department. In 1963 he was honoured for his musical contributions by the South African Academy of Science and Art.

Du Plessis' compositions were varied and included both choral and instrumental pieces. He is noted for his contributions to both South African chamber music and orchestral music. Initially opposed to the idea, du Plessis included Afrikaans folk music in some of his later compositions. In the 1960s, he composed some nationalist works, which were endorsed by the National Party government, which he actively supported. He attributed his nationalistic music to a "growing consciousness" of his Afrikaner heritage, and therefore was not opposed to his music being used for political purposes. 

Despite the strict laws against homosexuality in Apartheid South Africa, du Plessis was spared public disgrace and legal troubles by the government and lived unashamedly as an outspoken and openly gay man. He appeared in front of the South African Parliament to campaign against tightening of anti-homosexuality laws in the late 1960s. 

He died at his home in Stellenbosch on March 12, 2011 at the age of 88.

- Birthday Encore -

David Kosviner

Birthday Encore was composer in 1982 for a fellow student at the University of Cape Town, Gudrun Winkler, who later went on to study Flute in Vienna.

David Kosviner (1957-)

South African composer, now resident in Germany.

Studied with Peter Klatzow, James May and Stuart Reiner at the Universiteit van Kaapstad – University of Cape Town from 1975–78 and from 1981–86, where he graduated with his BMus and MMus with distinction. He attended seminars with Morton Feldman in 1983 and studied composition with Helmut Lachenmann at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Stuttgart from 1984–88 and with George Nicholson at Keele University from 1991–95, where he earned his PhD. 

He co-founded the ensemble for contemporary music Obelisk in Pretoria in 1981. He performed as a percussionist in the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and the orchestra of Cape Town City Ballet from 1981–83 and as an extra player in the Staatsorchester Stuttgart in the mid-1990s.

He taught arrangement, composition and orchestration at the Universiteit van Kaapstad from 1981–83. He later taught as a tutor in the studio for electronic music of the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und darstellende Kunst Stuttgart from 1987–98 and lectured on composition at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen from 1990–94. He has taught composition, music history and percussion at the Freie Musikschule Stuttgart since 1991.