ACTOR Speaker Series:
Afrological Perpectives on Timbre & Orchestration
Andile Khumalo
Orchestration: a functional approach to sound organization in African music
The Sub-Saharan Africa/Diaspora Subgroup of the Analysis, Creation and Teaching of Orchestration (ACTOR) project and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT) invite all for the fifth talk of the Speaker Series: Afrological Perspectives on Timbre and Orchestration. Presented by Andile Khumalo (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) on 13 March 2023 from 12:00-1:15pm (EST), the talk is entitled “Orchestration: a functional approach to sound organization in African music”
Andile Khumalo is a senior lecturer in music theory, orchestration, and composition at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg. His compositions are influenced by jazz, different African musics (e.g., the Amhara people, the Nguni people of South Africa, the Amadinda from Uganda), French spectralism, and more. He has written about the traditional bow music of the Xhosa people arguing that contrary to the standing notion that rhythm is the most exciting aspect of African music, in some parts of Africa timbre plays a much more critical role than rhythm. He is passionate about the Indigineous African Music (IAM) transcription project, and with Bernett Mulungo has created a publishing company, Jiwe publishers, who continue to transcribe new IAM works.
