THE BOW PROJECT

The Bow Project goes on tour

NewMusicSA is the South African Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music. This year, it celebrates its tenth anniversary and to mark the occasion the Distell Foundation is sponsoring a national tour of The Bow Project.

The Bow Project was conceived by Michael Blake in 2002 as part of the National Arts Festival. This project has developed over the past six years as a platform for South African composers from many different traditions – classical, choral, jazz, rock, electronic, experimental – to reinterpret or re-imagine the uhadi bow songs of the great Nofinishi Dywili, in the medium of the string quartet.

The original artistic objective of the project was to encourage South African composers to engage with traditional music as a compositional resource. Each was asked to make a transcription of an uhadi bow song, and use that as the basis for their work, which would then be performed in conjunction with a bow player herself.

Composers whose work will be featured on the tour are Matteo Fargion, Martin Scherzinger, Robert Fokkens, Sazi Dlamini, Paul Hanmer, Mokale Koapeng, Lloyd Prince, Julia Raynham, Theo Herbst, Aryan Kaganof, and Michael Blake. Also featured will be Danish composers who have written quartets in response to uhadi bow songs: Kristian Blak and Atli Petersen.

The Nightingale String Quartet, a dazzling young all-female string quartet from Denmark, will join one of South Africa’s legendary uhadi performers, Mantombi Matotiyana, for a two-week tour of concerts and a CD recording in South Africa this July.

The Durban performance will take place at Howard College Theatre on July 24 2009 at 19h30. Tickets R50 (R20 for students). For more bookings and inquiries please call 031 260 3353.

More information on www.newmusicsa.org.za