Composing the future

Blending jazz, classical and South African influences, this concert is a bold new commission that challenges boundaries and delights audiences

- Melody Emmett

Blown away: Josie McClure will be performing in Variations on Cantaloupe Island on 12 October at the Shed & Silo in Benoni.

(Photo: Supplied)

Lovers of classical/ jazz music are in for a rare treat with the debut performance of Variations on Cantaloupe Island to be held on Sunday 12 October at the Shed & Silo in Benoni.

In another first, the Mzansi Chamber Music Collective (MCMC) commissioned the multi-award-winning composer Conrad Asman to write music specifically tailored to the extraordinary talents of classical saxophonist, Josie McClure.

A graduate of the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag in the Netherlands, McClure came second in the International Woodwind Competition in Bloemfontein. Her prize was a concert with the MCMC.

“This concert is very special to my heart,” says the MCMC’s creative director and well-known pianist, Eugene Joubert.

He believes there needs to be more consciousness of contemporary South African compositions and works of different genres among South African audiences.

From the MCMC’s perspective, he says, “To be able to commission a work for piano and saxophone, or for piano and trio, or for cello and violin, whatever it is, as we move forward as the collective has been very special. And we have been really fortunate to have come across Conrad Asman.”

Asman, whose works have been performed in Africa, Asia, Europe and America, is pursuing a doctoral degree in music at the Royal Academy of Music in the UK.

His musical influences range from classical to jazz to Afropop: Mozart, Ligeti, Thomas Adès, Charlie Parker, Herbie Hancock and Dizzy Gillespie.

Everybody from Nigerian Afropop superstar Fela Kuti to the Kenyan nyhatiti player Ayub Ogada to South African composer and pianist Surendran Reddy were among the names he mentioned.