International Society for Contemporary Music

Italo Calvino’s extraordinary novel If on a winter’s night a traveller provided the initial spark for this piece on a structural level – in it, a single linear narrative constantly alternates with extracts (often beginnings) of other stories, which are then abandoned abruptly after a few pages to return to the unfolding tale about books and reading. From a musical perspective, this yielded – for me, at least – a rondo-like approach, albeit one in which the initial rondo idea is constantly developing. Unfortunately, I am no Calvino – the structural idea has lost his clarity and rigidity in the course of my composing…but perhaps that is no bad thing.

The materials themselves draw on a number of sources – as always in my work, various Southern African musics come into contact with a raft of influences from sources as various as Cage, electronica, Reich and jazz. This is all done within a pitch language learned from the traditional bow music of the Xhosa-speaking people of South Africa, which, being over-tone based, also gives rise to my usage of quarter-tones. The title reflects the South African sources (both musical and personal) of the piece – Mzantsi is Xhosa for ‘South’, and is a contraction of Mzantsi Afrika sometimes used to refer to the country informally across the broad language spectrum in South Africa today.

Mzantsi Nights was written for Joel Sachs and the New Juilliard Ensemble, and received its world premiere in the Juilliard School’s Paul Recital Hall on 3 November 2014.