Paper short abstract:

Using examples from my work as a composer and researcher a case study for the creation of experimental music based on African concepts, I will propose artistic and curricular innovations in new music, also discussing the meaning this work takes on in relation to discourses of decolonization.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I will use my own work as a composer, improvisor, and researcher as a case study for the creation of experimental music based on African music traditions, focusing on three examples: my development of experimental intercultural collaboration as an approach for collective work in compositional innovation; the Suite for Burkina Electric and Orchestra as an example of intercultural composition and performance; and improvisation through cross-adaptive data processing, a research project in its beginning stages, as an example of how African cultural experiences can serve as a foundational concepts for a technological experiment.

Based on these examples, as well as on references to African music pedagogies and ethnomathematics, I will propose possibilities for innovations in academic music curricula and approaches for composition and ensemble interplay based on aesthetic and cognitive considerations. I will contextualize this through a discussion of the meaning these pursuits take on in the current sociopolitical climate with its postcolonial and identity-oriented discourses.

Paper short abstract:

I explore Bernard Woma's creation and re-creation of original music for the Dagara gyil xylophone within his highly developed performative praxis. Through analyses of his compositional processes, I seek to convey the essence of Bernard's music by exploring both its interior and exterior dimensions.

Paper long abstract:

In my paper, I will explore Bernard Woma's creation and re-creation of original music for the Dagara gyil within his highly developed performative praxis. Bernard Woma is the late gyil guba (master Dagara xylophonist) and founder of the Dagara Music Center. As an innovative performer/composer, Bernard created a vibrant new style of gyil music. It is this neo-traditional music created for the concert hall, yet firmly rooted in Dagara tradition, that is the focus of my paper. Through analyses of his compositional processes, I seek to convey the essence of Bernard's music by exploring both its interior and exterior dimensions. I aim to communicate a robust understanding of his compositional processes; including cultural foundations of his music within Dagara indigenous knowledge systems, his success as a contemporary improviser composer performer moving the gyil xylophone beyond these foundations, and ways in which his music was embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended on the global stage. I explore Bernard's music from a wide-angle view through a transdisciplinary lens encompassing embodied/enactive cognition, indigenous knowledge systems, and African musicology. I simultaneously zoom in on a single seminal composition, Gyil Yeru, that connects to Bernard's larger repertoire and reflects his explorations as a global musician. This composition, created originally for solo gyil, expanded to gyil trio, then developed into an orchestral concerto, forms a bridge between the indigenous wisdom of Dagara musical traditions and the contemporary global concert stage. As such, it provides an ideal vehicle for developing a model of composition-in-performance within Bernard Woma's praxis.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the manifold possibilities in African traditional music and how composers have begun to utilize these in orchestral compositions using Ghana as a case study. It also asks why art music has lagged popular music and jazz in adoption of African elements and why this is now changing.

Paper long abstract:

A century ago, Africa was virtually unknown in art music circles except via a handful of pioneering Afro-European composers. The vast wellspring contained in the diverse musical traditions of the African continent was all but absent from the canon of Western Art music which by then had incorporated significant input from European folk music and increasingly looked to the Near East, Asia, and the Americas for inspiration.

The past century has however seen a flourishing of indigenous African composers who have sought to embody the “Sankofa” ideal – an ideal symbolized in Ghanaian Adinkra tradition by a backwards-looking bird with an egg in its beak – signifying that the past could hold important lessons for the future. In this paper I examine diverse approaches composers take to reflect African traditional music elements in modern art music using Ghana as a case study, and specifically in relation to four seminal orchestral composers: Nayo, Kafui, Abiam, and Labi. Looking towards the future, I utilize an original “African Symphonism” theoretical framework to discuss how composers can seek new sources of inspiration from the thousands of years of innovation and cultural evolution embodied in African musical traditions.

Finally, I make a cursory tour of the parallel evolution of jazz and popular music and its use of Africanisms. I explore possible reasons why the adoption of African traditional music elements in art music has lagged that of popular music and jazz, and why, due to a variety of factors, this trend is set to change.

Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the role of music management, curation and programming in the production and consumption of new/experimental music based on concepts and practices of African music traditions, and how this curatorial process shapes areas of work of African composers and other music practitioners.

Paper long abstract:

From a critical music administration and management perspective, this paper looks at the particular intersections between how new/experimental African music connected to local traditions is created, produced and how it is consumed, listened to and experienced.

Ignacio Priego (Program Manager, NewMusicSouthAfrica; Co-Curator, Oluzayo - African Music Futures Festival; Administrative Director, World New Music Days 2023 South Africa), who has been producing and managing music projects for over a decade based out of Africa, often with composers, ethnomusicologists, electronic and traditional musicians, will analyze in the first part the role of music management, curation and programming both inside and outside the continents plays in fostering the composition, production and consumption of new/experimental music being practiced Africa.

Secondly, the paper will look into the influence this curatorial process has in shaping the areas of work of African composers, performers and other practitioners of new/experimental African music in terms of music styles, concept, topics, forms and their connections with local music traditions.

Almost 80 years since Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh composed "Ta'abir Al-Zaar" [The Expression of Zaar], one of the earliest known works of tape music or musique concrète, where he used a wire recorder to capture the sounds of an zar ritual - a traditional magic healing ceremony featuring drums, flutes and singing -, new/experimental African music based on African music traditions is today still emergent, still unfolding, still on the move and, ultimately, still being articulated as a viable and healthy music ecosystem.

Paper short abstract:

The presentation will focus on the development of an electronic replica for the manza, a declining court xylophone that belonged to the patrimonial chiefs and notables of the Azande people in northern DR Congo, and the rediscovery, revival and restitution of both artistic and scientific knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

The main focus of the presentation is the electronic replica developed for the manza, a type of court xylophone belongs to the patrimonial chiefs and notables of the Azande people in northern Democratic Republic of Congo. A number of these instruments are preserved in the collection of Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren (Belgium) since 1913.

Supported by ethnomusicology and archive analysis, the electronic replica is the tool and agency for the interdisciplinary research plan of rediscovery, revival and non-tangible cultural restitution of the declining patrimonial music tradition. First, it is the tool for rediscovering music practices—performance and compositional techniques—that have been lost and neglected in databases and past scientific researches, and even, among the source communities. Second, it is the agency of revival of the non-tangible cultural heritage that has been disrupted by colonization. The project will invite the source and diaspora communities to co-creation and co-experimentation processes; hence, the replica is a complimentary tool for restitution work for the ethnographic museum through participatory creative actions. Third, the replica is the interactive tool for pedagogical exchange and public dissemination. It will give hands-on experience to visitors in workshops and exhibitions, and for professional musicians and students in Europe to create new music together with the musical knowledge of manza xylophone. Therefore, apart from the envisaged impact of heritage preservation and decolonial values, the project is expected to renovate Western new/contemporary music with traditional African music practices.

Paper short abstract:

The paper introduces a practice-led research investigating the field of possibilities of the term technology in ancestral and contemporary musical contexts in Southern and Western Africa. It observes the materiality of instruments by bridging music, technology and indigenous knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

Through fieldwork and practice-led research, the author has investigated transcultural aspects of sonic arts in Southern and Western Africa by exploring the field of possibilities of the term technology within musical contexts. During research trips in Mozambique, South Africa, and Eswatini from 2015 to 2018, the investigation deepened by combining pre-colonial musical instruments with electroacoustic ones and improvisation methods. The point of departure resides in the situation of the masters’s knowledge of these instruments being in rural environments, and the youngest generation going to urban environments for better opportunities, which lead to the loss of musical knowledge transmission. Thus, the author developed a collaborative practice-led research to address the field of possibilities of such technology by re-enacting the instruments in contemporary musical contexts. Further, the idea to investigate sonic arts of rituals, ancestral and indigenous technology and knowledge take place too since 2022 in Ghana, where an on-going research through dialogue with musicians playing specific instruments, poets, Elders, and the serendipitous encounters that may happen, informs the research. The interest resides in addressing the idea of materiality of the instruments, the voices and their connection with the immaterial world. The dialogue is also established through contemporary computer music. The augmentation of the purely material ‘thingness’ and motility of the musical instrument is proposed here as sonic potential allowing dialogues. The intended scope of the project is extensive, exploring the promotion of multiple worldview, world senses, world sensations related to the traditional Indigenous Elders’ knowledge.

Paper short abstract:

The influence of modern culture poses a threat to indigenous musical practices and the resulting cultural ideals. This paper examines past and present indigenous musical practices in the Ovwuvwe festival in Nigeria, highlighting and contextualising Africanism through indigenous musical traditions.

Paper long abstract:

In Africa, most cultural practices revolve around indigenous musical performances, which are the primary means of disseminating indigenous knowledge and values. They act as a means of re-enacting historical, social, and cultural affinities and documenting and maintaining indigenous knowledge. Indigenous musical practices also serve as a repository for indigenous knowledge and artistic tradition. However, in the twenty-first century, the influence of modern culture poses a significant threat to these indigenous musical practices and the resulting cultural ideals. They are viewed as mere entertainment, which minimises the cultural characteristics of these indigenous musical practices. This paper examines past and present indigenous musical practices in the Ovwuvwe cultural festival observed by the Urhobo people in Delta State, Nigeria, to highlight and contextualise Africanism through indigenous musical traditions. The research methodology employed in this study is based on an indigenous knowledge framework that prioritises the study of indigenous music through an indigenous prism. This study enables a re-evaluation of indigenous musical practices' role and space within Urhobo culture using trans-disciplinary approaches. The interviews with the participants and ceremonialists confirm that indigenous musical practices relate to and are rooted in the indigenous culture of the people. This study offers recommendations for advancing indigenous musical practices' integration with contemporary practices without losing their originality, purpose, meaning, and message. The study significantly expands the field of African studies by demonstrating how indigenous music traditions support other facets of African cultural practices.