Christine Lucia | Retrieving Michael Moerane, African Composer

Event details

Speaker: Prof Christine Lucia (University of Stellenbosch)

Date: 25 January 2024

Time: 5.15 - 6.45pm.  

Venue: Alison House, Atrium (G10)

Abstract

Black classical instrumental composers and black popular or traditional music from the global north tend to dominate discourse around de-colonisation. This presentation offers a perspective from the global south on black classical composition from southern Africa, specifically through the lens of the composer, Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1904-1980). The emphasis will be on how such historical African figures who worked in obscurity and often in the poorest regions in the world can be researched, and their music retrieved and presented globally, especially in the absence of written documentation.

Biography

An Oxford graduate, Christine Lucia spent 41 years in South Africa from the 1970s to 2010s teaching and managing curriculum change at Rhodes, Westville, Wits and Natal Universities. Her publications include The World of South African Music: A Reader (2005) and articles on Kevin Volans, Abdullah Ibrahim, J.P. Mohapeloa and M.M. Moerane. She now researches and publishes works by neglected composers from Africa online at www.african-composers-edition.co.za. Lucia is currently working on a book on Moerane for Wits University Press, Johannesburg.