Reflections on an intercultural collaborative composition.

What is it about?

Short article serving as programme note for a recording of 'The Songs of Madosini', contained on a CD appended to this issue of the journal. Apart from describing the composition structurally and dramaturgically, it suggests that beyond its musical effect the work has an equally important function as a form of ‘social intervention’. Its collaborative performance will invariably facilitate an intercultural exchange of a kind, for which South Africa’s society rarely provides comparable forums. As the composition is based on an appreciation of musical differences, the article unpacks the notion of 'difference' from a complexity perspective, noting that the pertinent differences concern each other in ways that are concurrently constraining and enabling. The composition thereby gains systemic qualities that are not contained in any single style in isolation, but only emerge from the interactions of stylistic juxtapositions. The work implicitly suggests that what might be termed a ‘specifically South African idiom’ is principally attainable only on such a systemically complex level.

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Why is it important?

Discussion of an inter-cultural collaboration and composition from a complexity view. This perspective rehabilitates the possibility of reflecting on difference in a 'differentiated' manner, overcoming the politically correct, but extremely vague notion of 'sameness'.