Скачать или смотреть Roosenschoon Circle of light

It is to the credit of Dr Yvonne Huskisson – author of a comprehensive study, Black Composers of Southern Africa - that the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has an extensive archive of authentic field recordings by local musicians speaking one or more of the official languages of South Africa.


I was fortunate to have had access to a select number of these transcription recordings whilst I was an employee of the SABC in Cape Town from 1980-1995.
One of them, the song Siyanibulisa Nonke (Greet you all), as sung in Xhosa by Tanduxolo Secondary Choir at Kwa-Nobuhle, was the inspiration for my orchestral work Circle of light (1989).


The title of my work suggests something about the musical structure of the piece:
as one moves inward from the dark periphery of illumination, the source gradually becomes brighter. An array of images is created: refraction of light, its opulent glow, its vivid glittering.........

Circle of light unfolds in nine sections which alternate between slow and fast tempi, and that explores several facets of the original theme. Moving from one section to the next, the source becomes gradually more apparent until the last section, in which the original theme (Siyanibulisa Nonke) is heard in its entirety for the first time.


I am indebted to the South African artist, André Groenewald whose painting I used as backdrop to my music, presenting it in a similar way as the one I followed in my composition.