Programme note
My setting to music of poems by the South African poet Adam Small, is the fulfilment of an ambition I entertained for some time - for the past fifteen years, I tried in vain to persuade a number of organisations to get involved in such a project.
I was very excited when Hennie Loock asked me to write a work for the Tygerberg Children's Choir to celebrate their 21st anniversary.
Besides, he shared my enthusiasm for Small's satirical poetry. Through the kind support of the Foundation for the Creative Arts, this a cappella work for double choir became a reality.
There are three movements:
The first, "Ons het 'n hys gebou" (We built a house), is loaded with irony, and looks at the transience of building, and untimely ruins. The sounds of Township, as well as the well-known Ladysmith Black Mambazo, all form part of the musical building-blocks that are cast in a contemporary idiom.
The second movement, "O, waar is Moses" (Oh, where is Moses), endeavours to voice in a kind of antique style, the search and longing for a leader, whilst the last movement, "Kô, lat ons sing", suggests the character of a Cape "moppie" (a typical Cape Malay song), the choir imitating the sounds of stringed instruments.
For the rest, I hope that the listener will discover at the end of the work that all three movements are in fact a musical flight on the very moving anthem of our native soil, "Nkosi sikelel' i Afrika".
Come, let us sing!
Review
The evening’s undoubted highlight, which earned a well-deserved standing ovation, was Hans Roosenschoon’s Kom Laat Ons Sing (sic)......It was good to hear a local composition of exceptional standard performed exceptionally well.
(Fourie, Carl. 13 June 1994, THE ARGUS)
De Villiers, Raoul. 21 June 1993, DIE BURGER
Jack, Elspeth. 10 August 1993, CAPE TIMES
Cillié, Petra. 16 July 1993, DIE BURGER
Cloete, Johan. 16 July 1993, THE ARGUS
Human, Koos. 8 August 1994, DIE BURGER
Boekkooi, Paul. 22 July 1994, STAR