AN INTERVIEW WITH MZILIKAZI KHUMALONdwamato George Mugovhani
Mzilikazi James Khumalo, Emeritus Professor in African Languages at the University of the Witwatersrand, folksong arranger, choral composer, and choir director, was born on the Salvation Army farm KwaNgwelu, in the Vryheid District of Natal, in 1932. He was the third son of Senior Major A.M. Khumalo, a priest in the Salvation Army and Mrs Ntombizodwa Johanna Khumalo. Throughout his scholastic career he sang in school choirs and thereby learned to read tonic solfa notation. He also learned staff notation through playing the euphonium in the Salvation Army band. Professor Khumalo qualified as a teacher in 1954, and thereafter studied music part-time under the organist Charles Norburn. Besides literary publications, he is a prolific composer whose works include a cantata, and an opera in the African idiom. He retired from Wits in 1998 and is Deputy Chair of the Board of Directors at SAMRO. This interview took place at SAMRO House, Johannesburg.
GM: Welcome Prof, I appreciate it that you honoured this invitation to be interviewed.
MK: Thank you, George. You are most welcome.
GM: Would I be correct to believe that you are more recognised as a musician than an
African languages scholar?
MK: Yes. Actually, I think the Good Lord wanted me to be a musician. I became an
academic because I had to live. During my time I couldn’t live on music. But I thank God
that I was able to be a teacher, and after that I was able to go to university and be a language
assistant, then senior language assistant. Then when the doors opened up for blacks I
became a lecturer, and then progressed from being a senior lecturer, to assistant professor,
professor, and then head of the department of African Languages. This is growth, and you
can’t moan about that. I think that is what the Good Lord wanted me to do and that is
how I feel, because when I do music I feel so good. Do you know what some people call
me? They call me ‘Professor of Music’. I have so far received four honorary doctorates in
music around the country: University of South Africa, University of Zululand, Fort Hare
University, and Stellenbosch University. The latter awarded me the degree ‘for promoting
African Music extensively and to great acclaim, and creating an awareness of the African
idiom not only nationally but also internationally’. So they wrote.
GM: What influenced your interest in music?
MK: My parents, particularly my mother. My mother was the major influence in my
appreciation of traditional music during my early stage. She was a traditional Zulu music
fanatic. Most of the tales she used to relate to us in the evenings contained folksongs,
which she would sing to us. She also sang many other traditional Zulu songs for me, some
of which I still fondly remember. My mother, like Princess Magogo, who I am going to
talk about later, had a beautiful voice and knew a lot of indigenous Zulu Music. Hence I
dedicated one of my songs, Izibongo zikaShaka (The Praise Songs of King Shaka), to her.
Also, during my formative years I moved a lot around the country because of my father,
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who was a Major in the Salvation Army. We relocated from KwaNgwelu to areas such as
Durban, KwaHlabisa, and Vryheid in Natal, thereafter Venda and around Gauteng. I was,
therefore, educated in Natal, Venda, Soweto, and Pretoria. I became a teacher, which was
one of the best professions during our time. I spent the better part of my early childhood in
KwaHlabisa. This is where I gained my first musical experiences by singing at weddings.
It was here that I was exposed to the dynamics of group composition by participating
in traditional Zulu wedding competitions which occurred between the bride’s entourage
called umthimba and that of the groom we called ikhetho. During my teacher training at the
Bantu Normal College, my music-loving friends, Abiah Mahlase, Cyprian Mahlaba, Abel
Dlamini and I formed a jazz vocal ensemble, which we named Gay Gaities.
GM: Why Gay Gaities?
MK: We took that name from a popular jazz vocal group from America. We liked their
music. This was our extra-mural activity at the college, and we became very popular with
our entertaining performances. When I landed my first job as a teacher at Wallmanstal near
Pretoria North, Abiah and I decided to continue with the ensemble tradition. Together with
Douglas Kutumela and – who was that again? – Solly Pelo, we formed a highly respected
group which was more mature and sang more serious music, particularly traditional African
music. Our concerts were always well attended, because of our promotion of South African
black folksongs in our repertoire. This group gave birth to The Black Orpheus Folksingers,
a male double quartet of teachers who were conductors of school choirs. I arranged most
of the traditional folksongs, and we staged concerts all over the show. The first half would
comprise world folk music and the second one would be South African folk music. I am
proud to mention that our group actually influenced South African school choirs to follow
our example in the singing of our traditional music.
GM: Does the rather derogatorily named ‘Bantu Normal College’ still exist, and if so,
what is it now called?
MK: I do not think it is still there. Remember, by its very name and nature, it was an apartheid
institution, and since it was established in the then black location called Vlakfontein which
is now part of Mamelodi Township in Pretoria, I suspect it could have been converted into
one of the secondary schools now flourishing in Mamelodi.
GM: How did it happen that you found yourself in the Pretoria Bantu Normal College?
MK: My parents and I were living in Soweto, and the nearest and cheapest tertiary institution
was this college. My parents could not afford to send me to Fort Hare University in the
Eastern Cape, which was far, and expensive. I must also mention that after matriculating at
Fred Clark Secondary, a Salvation Army Boarding school in Soweto, in 1950, I had to first
go and work in a firm that sold clothing in town (Johannesburg). Later I worked at Shell
House, in 1951. People like Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Bishop Stanley Mokgoba also
studied at this college with me, because our parents could not afford to send us to the
better tertiary institutions. Do no forget that an institution such as the University of the
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Witwatersrand, which was even closer to our homes in Soweto, was beyond our reach
during that time due to racial discrimination.
GM: How would you describe or define the music of your predecessors, such as Caluza,
Assegaai Kumalo, Tyamzashe, Myataza, Moerane?
MK: I have the highest respect and love for the music of my predecessors, especially that of
Moerane. The better music of John Knox Bokwe I learned much later in my life, but I love
it also very much. His Vuka Debora was the first black choral song in our country. I knew it
because my mother sang it to us as children, and told us she had learned it at school. She
did not know who the author was, and I learned only later that it was John Knox Bokwe.
GM: Would I be correct to assume that your linguistic scholarship has played a role in your
compositional style?
MK: It has played a very important role. As an African language academic, I dealt [with] the
morphology, phonology, and tonology of these languages. My major subject was tonology,
which is the study of tonal systems of languages, and as a result of my study of the tonal
structure of African languages I was reaching out to a few people, mostly my students and
colleagues. With music, I came to realise that I can affect a wider audience in our society.
Actually, you know, our problem is that many people don’t understand that African music,
especially that whose lyrics are of a complex tone language, displays some elements of its
tonal structure in its music. For instance, if a syllable in such a language is pronounced
with an up-gliding high tone, the music note in that syllable will be an upward glissando,
i.e. a note sliding upward toward the tone instead of attacking it directly. Unfortunately,
because academics seldom use our music in their teaching, also because we ourselves do
not teach our music properly, many people do not realise that.
Let me supply an example from a popular African gospel song that illustrates this
interpretation. The title of the song is Woza Mmeli Wami (Come my Redeemer) and the
composer is anonymous .1 Here are the lyrics:
Woza Mmeli Wami; Woza Come, my Redeemer; come
Woza Mmeli Wami; Woza Come, my Redeemer; come
Uyasind’umthwalo wami; Yitshe The burden on me is heavy; like a stone
Uyasind’umthwalo wami; Yitshe The burden on me is heavy; like a stone.
Each of the four sentences is made up of two phrases. In the music each phrase contains
two bars. There are only three types of speech tones in the lyrics of these four musical
sentences: level high tone, level low tone, and up-gliding high tone. The lyrics in the first
two sentences are the same, and so are those in the third and fourth sentences. The music
however is not the same. What is interesting is that the music notes in syllables spoken
with an up-gliding high tone require upward glissandi in the singing. The first such upward
glissando occurs with the syllable ‘Wo’ in sentences one and two. The second example
is the third syllable ‘si’ in sentences three and four. The syllable is sung with an upward
glissando in the music. If we examine the place of occurrence of these upward glissandi
1 According to Khumalo it was introduced to the Salvation Army in White City Jabavu (Soweto) by
female church members who had picked it up somewhere (NGM).
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in the music, we discover that each one of them occurs in the first beat of the first bar in a
phrase. Suddenly we realise with quite some excitement that the syllable ‘si’ in sentences
three and four is on the first beat of the first bar of the first phrase in the sentences. The
music therefore changes the first syllables into beats of an anacrusis; the first strong beat in
the phrase is now changed to ‘si’, which should be sung with an upward glissando. This is
the application of sequence – making a new phrase sound like the one before.
GM: I remember back in 1998 you mentioned that your music uses primarily the heptatonic
and pentatonic mode. Why? And is it still the case?
MK: Well, actually I spoke of pentatonic and heptatonic scales because I think these are
the commonly used scales in our traditional music. I still use these, particularly [in] my
arrangements of traditional songs. I believe that in making an arrangement one must retain
the original version of the song and develop around it. In other words, you don’t take a
traditional piece and move away from it, you take it and broaden it. That is what is called
development.
GM: When did you start composing uShaka kaSenzangakhona? and why?
MK: The first song that I composed was Izibongo zikaShaka, which I completed on the
15th of August 1981. I was very happy with the music and when people heard it all over
South Africa they sent me massages of congratulations. Something else happened. I had
a daughter, Nonhlanhla, who was at Inanda Seminary in KwaZulu Natal, who one day
came back with a book that she shared with me and said, ‘Baba! You don’t know about a
man who writes such beautiful Zulu as this man, Baba Msimang’. The book was called
iZul’ eladum’ eSandlwana (The heaven that thundered at eSandlwana). It is a Zulu play
written by Professor Themba Msimang. She said to me that when they started reading this
book there was so much excitement in class, about the way this man writes isiZulu. It is
so beautiful. She gave me the book and asked me to read it. I read it, and immediately my
hair got up. I just couldn’t believe how beautifully he wrote this book. I told my daughter
that I’m going to hunt this man because there is something I want from him. I want him to
write words for my songs, because when I started composing it was B.W. Vilakazi’s poetry
that I used, and I had already completed three songs using his lyrics. I traced Msimang.
When I found him, I said, ‘Look my friend, I think we must work together. If you write
the words for me, I will put them to music’. He was very happy with that. Then I wrote
another song, which is also about King Shaka Zulu, Siyashweleza Nodum’ehlezi (We beg for
your pardon). ‘Nodum’ehlezi’ is Shaka. He had got killed very terribly and before he died
he cursed the Zulu people saying, ‘so you think you will run this place? You won’t rule this
place’. We know that the Zulus started suffering after Shaka’s murder. I felt that we must
say sorry and also beg for his pardon, and this is what this song did. This song came from
iZulu eladum’ eSandlwana by Msimang. I used the first words in that book that my daughter
had brought.
When I started it I told Msimang and said, ‘Look, I have started writing a song Siyashweleza
Nodum’ehlezi but I just got a few words from your book. Now I would like you to write me
the full words of how we should apologise to King Shaka’. He wrote the rest of the words
and that is how we have these two major songs: Izibongo zikaShaka (The Praise Songs of
King Shaka) where we praise him in the chorus, and Siyashweleza (We beg for your pardon)
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the second chorus, which I completed in 1982. Then I said to him, ‘I’ve got these two
songs which would be the main pillars of a cantata. Let’s write a cantata that will tell the
whole story of Shaka’. He didn’t take long. I received the first chapter of words of uShaka
and was much moved. But then I had a problem; which was there was quite a number
of names of the leading Zulu elderly people who were involved in wars that took place
during the reign of King Shaka, and the names of the fighting groups that were taking
part. Some of them I didn’t know how to pronounce, because I had never heard of them.
Then I said to him, ‘Do me a favour and take a tape recorder and read out the words of the
whole chapter one, articulate the words so that when I start writing I should clearly hear
the correct pronunciation and the tone patterns of those words’. Later on he sent me the
second chapter. Then it became clear to me that although the lyrics are so beautiful and it is
such great poetry, I realised that the chapters are so long that I can’t put them all to music. I
thought of a solution, and found it. I decided to use those that are easily put into music and
where I felt I could not put them into music I decided that they must be recited, so that we
can keep the sequence of the words. This is why there is a section where a poet speaks in
this epic, uShaka kaSenzangakhona. It was so wonderful because from the first day when we
did this, the poet was Msimang himself. That is how we went on until we got to the end.
GM: Why do you call it an epic?
MK: Because it tells a story of a brave man. As I told you Izibongo zikaShaka was completed
in 1981; Siyashweleza was completed a year thereafter, on the 31st of May 1982. On the 12th
of March 1985 I completed the whole uShaka kaSenzangakhona.
GM: When did you start composing Princess Magogo, the song cycle and the opera?
MK: The title of the song cycle was Haya Mntwan’omkhulu (Sing great princess) and it was
completed in 2000, and the opera, titled Princes Magogo kaDinizulu was completed in 2002.
GM: How was this conceived?
MK: I got commissioned by Opera Africa to write an opera on Princess Magogo. At that
time I was studying the songs of uMagogo to make a song cycle. I went through each song
from my recordings of twenty-nine songs and transcribed them all. Later on I listened
to them, studying the music and the words until I finally decided on the eight songs that
should form the cycle. Professor Peter Klatzow was commissioned by SAMRO to do the
accompaniment. When I finished each song I would send it to him with the translations
and the meaning. We worked very beautifully together.
GM: In other words, you are saying Peter Klatzow was commissioned to offer
accompaniment to your arrangements of Princess Magogo songs only, and not also
the opera?
MK: Yes, Peter Klatzow only offered the accompaniment for the eight songs (the song
cycle). After I had I finished this cycle, I started working on the opera.
GM: Still commissioned by Opera Africa?
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MK: Opera Africa had commissioned me not for the song cycle but for the opera. SAMRO
commissioned me for the song cycle. Working on the opera was very exciting. I was
working at home on my own. Msimang was commissioned to write the words. After he
had finished I started writing the music and I was very happy in writing that music. I said
to the Opera Africa Company, ‘If you write an opera about a person who is a composer,
you should include some of his or her compositions in the work, and let them be heard by
the audience’. We agreed, and I included three or four original songs in the opera.
GM: You didn’t study music that extensively. You studied African languages until you
became Professor and Chair at Wits. But here you are as the composer of an opera. How
did it come about that you know the modalities of composing an opera and a song cycle?
MK: Well I didn’t actually know. Sometimes I would find myself really struggling alone.
GM: But now you understand the dynamics of opera?
MK: No, I don’t fully understand. There are differences between western opera and our
opera. What happened is that when I had written the opera, I was invited to different
places to go and witness the performances of some operas. After I had listened to them, I
started to realise that some of my music is fine but it is not sufficient for an opera. A good
example is the main song of King Dinizulu when he comes from banishment. He meets his
people and they are so thrilled. Speaking to them in the opera, he sings: ‘Ngiyanibingelela
Zulu’ (I greet you Zulu people) ‘Ngiyanibingelela nina zintsika zezwe’ (I greet you pillars of
the country). He continues singing until he finishes, and there are no answers! I realised
that in an opera it is quite wrong. It shouldn’t be that this man talks to the people and
they don’t answer! Even though it is an opera. Culturally, if the Zulu people keep quite
when their king speaks to them, he might kill them! They must say ‘Ndabezitha’ (Hail your
Majesty), etc.
GM: Yes.
MK: I had to correct it. And in the opera now, when the king sings ‘Ngiyanibingelela Zulu’
(I greet you all Zulus), they sing ‘Ndabezitha wena wendlovu’ (Hail the one who is as great as
the elephant). That’s different. That’s real opera because people are responding and that is
the correct action. Those are some of the things I had to teach myself.
GM: But how could Opera Africa conceive of this idea of commissioning Professor
Khumalo to compose an opera when they didn’t know whether he could do that?
MK: They are promoters of African music and they were impressed by the music of
Mzilikazi Khumalo. They had heard uShaka and realised how powerful it was.
GM: How did the Nation Building Massed Choir Festival come about, and how would
you describe your role in defining its objectives?
MK: It was all because of Aggrey Klaaste, who was the editor of the Sowetan newspaper.
He worked on this project of nation building. He wanted us to help our people, to build
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them up as a nation. He decided that somehow we must get something which will make
us feel proud of who we are. He asked, ‘What is it that our people are quite good at and
which we can encourage?’ And he found that it is music. He then asked Richard Cock and
me to build the festival in which we would make people sing their music and be proud of
their selves. He wanted them to know that their music is as good as the music of any other
people. He was convinced that it would make them proud and build them up as a nation,
and he kept writing about this concept of nation building. Finally, he was able to get the
Caltex Company to be the donor. He then called Richard Cock and me, explained the
whole concept, and asked us if we would be willing to be music directors of this festival.
Both of us said we would be thrilled to do it since we agreed with the whole idea of nation
building. We started in 1989. In the first concert we had about twenty choirs.
In the first half of the concert, each choir sang its own chosen song. There were just a few
songs put aside to be sung by the mass choir during the second half. Something that struck
me was that when we had to sing those few songs where there were solos, the repertoire
was western songs. There were white soloists and not a single black soloist. When we
had finished, I talked to Richard and told him that there was something wrong in what
we were doing because we were trying to get black people to be proud of themselves, and
yet all the soloist were white. Richard agreed with me. This is how we started introducing
black songs with solo passages. Because it was not easy to have black choral works with
solo passages, I told Richard that I was going arrange a few songs with solos for black
people. He appreciated my undertaking. Then the following year I wrote a song called
Akhala amaqhude amabili (The two cocks are crowing)2 for choir and four soloists: soprano,
mezzo-soprano, tenor, and bass. The first mezzo-soprano we had was Sibongile Khumalo.
It was like magic. What was quite touching was the fact that in the first year of the festival
she was there but not singing, because she was playing violin. She played in the orchestra
because there was no chance of her singing as a soloist. In 1990 we made her a soloist and
people started to know her as a soloist. The other soloists also did so well, and they were so
happy and we were so proud! That is how many soloists that you hear in this country have
developed. Most of them were part of this mass choir.
GM: So the nation had begun to be built.
MK: Oh yes.
GM: Did the soloists come from music schools in our country? Had they all
received training?
MK: Yes, because there are many places where you can be trained.
GM: Would you regard the festival as something that might have influenced people to
come and grab this phenomenon of singing opera? There are quite a number of black
people singing opera.
2 According to indigenous knowledge systems, when a cock crows at dawn, it is a sign that it is time to
wake up and go to work, particularly women (NGM).
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MK: Oh yes. They all come being trained as soloists. The thing which is now popular for
a soloist is opera. It all came from this humble beginning with the Nation Building Massed
Choir Festival.
GM: Until you started this project, did you like opera?
MK: No! I didn’t know what opera was, I did not even have a proper knowledge of opera.
I just saw people acting and singing and so on.
GM: So you didn’t even listen to opera?
MK: What I liked were cantatas and oratorios like the Messiah, but not opera, because I
didn’t know opera. I got to learn opera much later in my life. Today when I hear the people
sing Princess Magogo you can’t imagine how I feel. Because I never quite thought that we
would get there; because I didn’t even know where ‘there’ was.
GM: Do you believe that a western trained voice can be used to sing African music?
MK: Yes! And actually our indigenous music sounds very good with such a voice.
GM: That is interesting. Does South African black choral music have an identity?
MK: I don’t think it really has an identity. I think the greatest problem is that not all of our
indigenous musics are sufficiently developed. I can understand how Zulu traditional music
sounds; because I can feel from the rhythms and so on that this is Zulu music. But if it is
in another African language, you don’t have a way of identifying that this sounds Sotho or
Venda, and the reason is that we don’t have enough traditional music of all our black people.
We don’t hear enough of that. This is something I have been moaning about. I have been
saying to the people that we need more of the traditional music of all our people. Hence
you can’t say I’m writing in South African music style because there is no music which will
capture every different segment of style from our different languages. I am familiar with
music in Zulu, Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele because they are Nguni languages and their
tonal structures are similar. The distinction is with the types of glissandi occurring in their
music. These are the few things that distinguish our music. These are the elements in the
Nguni languages that I know well because I have studied them. I didn’t have time to study
these other languages, and that is why I keep on requesting people to get us more Venda,
Tsonga, Pedi music, and so on and more of the traditional ones. From those traditional
ones we can pick something that we can put together when we want to use the style of
Africa, where nobody will know whether it’s more Zulu or Venda. I have been indicating
that a song like Woza Mmeli wami has a lot of influence from its tonal language, and all our
music I think has a lot to do with our tonal languages.
GM: So is it correct to conclude then that we don’t have a South African black choral music
identity but we have a few identities like Xhosa choral music or Tswana choral music?
MK: Yes.
GM: Is it possible that we can have an identity encompassing all these South African
black languages?
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MK: It is possible.
GM: But we don’t have such an identity at the moment?
MK: Not an identity that binds everybody; we have identities of different groupings.
GM: That’s a pity. What is your opinion on South African music education in general? Are
the music that you and I have received and the music that your children, grandchildren,
and future great grand children are receiving, really honing our skills and helping us to
define our identity?
MK: You know to be honest with you, there are few things which make my heart so sad [as]
the way people treat music in our country. Because I mean where do you really get schools
that teach proper music to our children? They don’t teach them music; there are very few
schools, and most of these schools are not black schools but white schools. Not only that,
but another thing is in tertiary institutions where they teach and do black music, do they
teach the things I have been talking about? There is no focus in our teaching of African
music. Also, there is something that is happening to our people; they have suffered so much
that they are making mistakes in selecting what is correct. For instance, many of our young
women won’t speak to their children in their mother tongue, they speak to them in English.
When you ask them why they say, ‘What are they going to get by using indigenous African
languages’? They are contributing towards making them undermine their language, which
is their identity. But you can’t blame these people; they have suffered a lot and now they are
trying to help their children to speak English well in order to get better jobs.
GM: What would you like to see happen in music in our schools and tertiary education?
MK: I spoke to a few of our people who are in tertiary education and told them that I
have a problem with trying as a composer to write music which accurately captures the
way we sing our traditional songs. I suggested that music students in tertiary institutions
be encouraged to go out and record some of the older people who know some of our old
traditional songs. The recordings could then be handed over to the music departments. It
would be the responsibility of the music departments to work out the notation of these
songs. This would result in our ultimately gaining an official notation system for our music
in dual notation (tonic and staff notation). As it is now, I do not even know what the correct
notation is for notes like the different types of glissandi that occur in our traditional music.
Worse still, since mother tongue speakers produce gliding tones in speech and glissandi in
traditional music subconsciously, how many of our musicians are able to identify these?
We need people who are going to study this music with all these glides and teach us how to
actually represent [notate] them accurately musically, so that everybody must be taught how
to connect doh with soh in a glide style to sound like doh-me-soh, as in Woza Mmeliwam.
We need to know proper ways of notating our music so that everybody can be accurate in
the singing of our songs.
GM: In other words, even those few music schools that we have are not teaching
properly?
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MK: They can’t teach music properly because there isn’t a system that is suitable for
representing the notation of some of our songs.
GM: Our children are going to operas and they are trained by white people who teach
them Aidas and so on, and when they come back you absorb them into the nation building
concept to sing both western and African music. They excel with the music and you want
them to also sing your music with this unique Zulu idiom. How do they reconcile to that?
Is it not difficult?
MK: It is a little difficult for most of them. But listen to our leading mezzo-soprano,
Sibongile Khumalo. You can’t touch her in the music of our culture. Her niece Sibongile
Mngoma (soprano), Themba Mkhwani (tenor), and a few other soloists are also doing very
well in the singing of traditional music.
GM: In other words, if some of these other people had been trained from the outset to sing
their own music properly when they were at school, it would have been easy.
MK: But the problem is, there are no such dynamics within our education sphere, at high
schools and even in higher education. There is no such a thing as an African idiom. If
you start singing in an African idiom, a western music-trained person will interpret that as
faulty intonation, such as scooping.
GM: Prof, you retired in 1998?
MK: My wife would be very amused to hear you saying that because she does not know a
retired person who cannot even stay at home!
GM: What other plans do you have?
MK: Well, big things. Let us wait and see. I do not want to let the cat out of the bag.
GM: You mentioned that at the beginning of your compositional career you used Vilakazi’s
poetry, and later collaborated with Msimang. Did you always have a librettist or lyricist for
your compositions?
MK: Yes. And this is why am still connected to Themba Msimang.
GM: As the Deputy Chair of the Board of Directors at SAMRO, what is your role?
MK: Well, I attend all the Board meetings, and run them on the rare occasions when the
chairperson is not there. I am also chairman of two sub-committees: the panel of which
you, George, are a member – adjudicators of post graduate bursaries in Indigenous African
music study – and on the editorial committee for the publication South Africa Sings, a series
of booklets of African choral repertoire in dual notation (tonic solfa and staff notation).
Only Volume 1 has appeared so far.3
GM: What is SAMRO’s role?
3 [Vol. 1 appeared in 1998 and Vol. 2 appeared shortly after this interview was conducted (Ed.).]
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Mugovhani – Interview with Mzilikhazi Khumalo
MK: SAMRO is a society whose primary objectives are the administration of the rights
of broadcasting, transmission, public performance, and mechanical rights in the musical
works of its members and affiliates. It licenses usage of its repertoire; collects the fees due;
assembles the information on the use of that music; computes and then distributes the
appropriate royalties to the respective rights holders.
GM: That is its primary mandate. Was it given the mandate by government?
MK: No. It was started as a private company by Gideon Roos. What he did was he formed
the company and started to collect money for the people and applied to the government
to have permission to run the company. It was okayed, because all over the world in
each country there are one or two companies that collect the rights of artists like singers,
composers, arrangers, and so on. We are that company [in South Africa], and I’m quite
happy about the company because I think it is doing well.
GM: How did you come onto the Board ? Were they recognising you more as a composer
than as an academic?
MK: I was recognised as a composer, arranger, and choirmaster.
GM: Are we somewhere with the movement towards making our compositions African?
Or will it stop with you, Prof ?
MK: It did not start with me and should not stop with me. In fact, it will not stop with me.
GM: Can you mention a few people who are making inroads into that?
MK: There are composers like Phelelani Mnomiya, who is also very powerful. There is
also this other composer, who died so young,
GM: Do you mean Lawrence Chonco?
MK: That’s right. In my opinion he was the most talented composer of choral music in
the traditional African idiom. In 2005, a professor of music in a tertiary institution in
the United States wrote me a letter inviting me to come to his institution for an Artistin-
Residence program. He wrote, ‘The purpose of the program is to bring artists and
scholars like you to our campus to give a certain number of presentations to classes and
public events, and to be available to students for individual questions about your particular
area of expertise’. In consideration of my age, they kindly offered that I come with an
assistant. I happily agreed to that, and I spoke to my favourite tenor soloist in African
traditional music, Themba Mkhwani. He told me he would be very happy to go with me
to America. I was told that my main responsibility was to work daily as guest conductor
of college singers to prepare for a concert of South African folk music at the conclusion of
the Artist-in-Residence program. Most of the songs to be sung had already been chosen by
the professor, who had recently visited South Africa. I was asked to add a few songs and
I added Ihele, which is my favourite composition of Phelelani Mnomiya, and a traditional
war song of King Dinizulu, UMgwagwa Usehlomile. Both songs have powerful tenor solo
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sections for Themba Mkhwani. Our three weeks of stay there were like a dream come true
and this was a highlight of my work with choirs.
GM: Do you remember the name of the institution?
MK: Do you think I could forget that? It was Kenyon College, in Gambier, Ohio and the
professor there was Benjamin Locke.
GM: At least there is an identity, because we are talking about Chonco who helped to
lay some beautiful foundation. Mnomiya is still around and we have singers like Themba
Mkhwani. At least, in a nutshell, you are saying that we still have people that can promote
the movement.
MK: Yes, of course. And George, I feel I must take this opportunity to mention the people
and the choirs that promoted my music.
GM: Yes of course. Please go ahead.
MK: The first person to admire my compositions was Simon Ngubane, then a music
inspector in Zululand. He particularly admired the interpolation in Zulu style in the middle
of my first composition, Ma Ngificwa Ukufa (When death catches up with me). Whenever we
met, he would always talk about ‘that wonderful song of yours, Ziyagiya’. Like many others
who admired that middle passage which I had deliberately composed in the indigenous
Zulu idiom, he did not use the title of the song, Ma Ngificwa Ukufa. I must hasten to thank
Themba Msimang, my lyricist, who inspires me so much. Next is Chris James who was
the first person to add instrumental accompaniment to my music [uShaka], and Robert
Maxym who later improved on what Chris had done. I must not forget Peter Klatzow who
offered the instrumental accompaniment in the song cycle, Haya Mntwano’mkhulu, and
Opera Africa for commissioning me to write the opera, Princess Magogo, and then of course
Michael Hankinson for providing the orchestration. SAMRO also helped in commissioning
the orchestration of uShaka. In my development as a composer, I am greatly indebted to
my friend, the late Jabulani Mazibuko, then conductor of one of the most successful black
choirs in the early twentieth century, The Soweto Teachers Choir. Because of his love of
my music, his choir served as the testing ground of all my new compositions. I am very
grateful to him for offering me the opportunity to listen to most of my works before they
went public.
Also in Jabulani’s choir, there was a wonderful soprano soloist named Thoko Simelane
who had this incredible voice, and she sang one of my favourite compositions, Inkondlo
kaMkabayi4 (Ode to Mkabayi), which is unmistakably Zulu in the text and the music.
She sang the song beautifully and thereby helped to popularise it. Also close to me was
Michael Rantho, choirmaster of the Atteridgeville Anglican Church Choir. He enjoyed my
compositions so much that he decided to introduce me to Charles Norburn who was the
organist of the St Albans Cathedral in Pretoria. Mr Norburn taught me the rudiments of
music, and I am grateful that he agreed to not change my composition style. The Daveyton
Adult Choir under my friend, Abiah Mahlase, The Cenestra Male Choir under Themba
Madlopha and the Bonisudumo Adult Choir under Ludumo Magangane also helped me
4 Mkabayi was King Shaka’s aunt, a very powerful figure during Shaka’s reign.
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Mugovhani – Interview with Mzilikhazi Khumalo
a great deal. They formed the first chorus for performances of UShaka kaSenzangakhona.
Finally, I must thank the two Salvation Army choirs that I had the opportunity to direct,
and these are the Peart Memorial Songsters and the Soweto Songsters. The Peart Memorial
Songsters are based in White City in Soweto, and I am their conductor. Initially, the choir
sang only English songs, and it was not long before I realised that this was a disadvantage
to the elders in the church, who did not understand what the choir was singing about. For
this reason, I decided to translate the English lyrics of the songs to Zulu. I also arranged
some of the popular African hymns such as Ewe linamandla (Yes, there is power in the
blood of the Lamb) and Galile (Galilee). I must also mention that the Male Section of
the Peart Memorial Songsters gave me an opportunity to compose for TTBB. Meanwhile,
the Soweto Songsters comprised members from different congregations around Soweto,
including the Peart Memorial Songsters. During the 100th Year Congress of the Salvation
Army in London, the Soweto Songsters represented the choirs of Africa, and performed at
the major service in Westminster Abbey.
GM: Do you remember the date?
MK: It was in 1978. That was the first time for the Salvation Army audience in London to
witness a black South African church choir singing and dancing. This choir also gave me
many opportunities to listen to my songs. They did most of my songs, and this helped me
to correct any sections whose weaknesses I discovered as they sang.
GM: Why do you change your original compositions?
MK: Many people ask me this question. Some of them forget, and most of them don’t
know, that I did not have any academic training in music. I must also say that I do not
really ‘change my original compositions’: what I do is change a few sections which I am
unhappy with and this, I think, is my right as a composer. Also, George, remember that
these changes have not occurred in all my compositions. But change it I will, if I am
unhappy with it. My choir sometimes laughs when I bring them a song that they sang a
few years back. Someone would ask, ‘Prof, have you changed it?’ and I would say, ‘Yes!’
If you don’t know sufficient music and you write, you do make mistakes. And if you see a
mistake you have to correct it, unless you are a fool. I have a number of traditional songs
which I have arranged and which my choir enjoys singing. Most of them have also been
prescribed for the Nation Building Massed Choir Festivals.
I am also changing some of my music because I am trying to improve my songs. I am
treating one song at a time. There is a company that wants to publish my songs, so I am
putting them right and changing this and that. I have thus far developed a number of
traditional African folksongs such as Imali yam (My money), Akhala amaqhude amambili,
Sizongena laph’emzini (We will enter the homestead) and Abakwami (My in-laws). The latter
was first arranged by Phelelani Mnomiya, and I have since developed it by adding so much
that it is now 120 bars long, and at the end of the Nation Building Massed Choir Festival
where it was part of the repertoire, both the audience and the participating choirs came
out of the Standard Bank Arena singing Abakwami. The audiences at these festivals always
enjoy joining the massed choir in the final traditional song.
GM: And this is a clear indication that African folksong singing by choirs has taken a
firm root. Thank you for contributing towards the promotion of indigenous South African
folklore.
MK: It has been my pleasure to do so.
