NewMusicSA is set to host the 2023 ISCM World New Music Days (WNMD) festival in South Africa, marking the 100th-anniversary edition of this historic celebration of music and creativity. This monumental event will be an unprecedented, historical milestone event for multiple reasons. First, it will be the ISCM’s centenary celebration and centennial edition of the festival. It will be the first WNMD ever to take place in Africa, the third time this festival is held in the southern hemisphere and the third time it takes place in a country of the Global South. No festival for new, innovative and experimental music of this breadth and magnitude has ever been organized on the African continent. The WNMD 2023 will be a defining moment for contemporary music in South Africa and the rest of the continent.
This 10-day extravaganza will bring together over 100 composers from 50 countries, making it a global hub for new ideas, collaborations, and artistic fusions. With more than 70 groundbreaking new music compositions performed by an impressive line-up of over 200 musicians across 25+ events, WNMD 2023 will be the most significant assembly of contemporary music ever witnessed on the African continent.
The ISCM World New Music Days 2023 festival will grace Gauteng and the Western Cape in South Africa, with events in Johannesburg, Soweto, Cape Town, and the surrounding areas. In partnership with the German group Ensemble Modern and ISCM WNMD educational partners, including MIAGI – Music is a Great Investment and Morris Isaacson Music Centre, the festival’s community outreach efforts will include rehearsals, workshops, masterclasses, and public performances.
This unique festival will showcase a rich tapestry of new music compositions, both from South Africa and the international stage. As Lukas Ligeti, Artistic Director of the festival, expressively puts it: “There are three programmatic pillars to the festival. The first upholds the fundamental principle of ISCM World New Music Days, ensuring that at least one composition from each chapter organization is performed. The second pillar pays tribute to the festival’s historical significance by revisiting some of the landmark works of the 20th and 21st centuries presented at previous editions. Lastly, the third pillar highlights the festival’s distinctiveness by presenting a diverse and eclectic selection of new, experimental, and unconventional music from Africa south of the Sahara.” A dedicated special program named Oluzayo – African Music Futures will feature futuristic African music curated by a team of programmers from Kenya, South Africa, Germany, Spain, Austria, and the USA.
Among the confirmed artistic highlights are some of today’s most renowned composers and musicians, with the festival featuring, among others, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, Odeion String Quartet, Coastal Brass Collective, Victor Gama (Angola), Kadilida & Jay Mitta (Tanzania), Burkina Electric (Burkina Faso), Ensemble Modern (Germany), Umze Ensemble (Hungary), Passepartout Duo (Italy/US), Akartia Trio & Casado-Croccolino Duo (Spain), Vertixe Sonora ensemble (Spain), and many more.
The festival promises to be an unparalleled celebration of music, culture, and artistic innovation, leaving an indelible mark on the world of contemporary music.
Website: www.newmusicsa.org.za
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NewMusicSA
Instagram: www.instagram.com/newmusicsa
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@newmusicsa
Twitter: www.twitter.com/NewMusicSA
Hashtags: #WNMD2023 #NewMusicSA
From Contemporaneous Reports
–“World New Music Days Festival | Diale Mabitsela weighs in,” SABC News, 25 November 2023.
“Breaking new ground, the World New Music Days will this year be held in South Africa, making it the first WNMD festival to take place in Africa. This is a first not only for the WNMD but for South Africa, too, as no comparable new-music festival of this scale has been held in the country before.”
–Keith Bramich, “The International Society for Contemporary Music takes World New Music Days
to South Africa for the very first time,” Classical Music Daily, October 2023.
“The experience was absorbing and immersive … 50-60 hours of live music performed in just 10 days.”
–Ed McKeon, “New Music in South Africa – questions for fieldwork,”
published on the website of the Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Reseearch (BCMCR)
on 24 January 2024.
“Som vanligt (och brukligt) så är det värdlandet som sedan blandar upp dessa utvalda verk med ytterligare programläggning som exempelvis kan komma från en egen återkommande festival som man hakar på ISCM. I fallet med årets festivalarrangör, New Music SA, så har man – förutom att lösa de utmaningar som präglar ett land där man inte har en stark finansieringsmodell för kulturlivet – samtidigt även velat matcha den överväldigande representation av repertoar på festivalen som kommer från övriga världens kontinenter med verk av afrikanska tonsättare. Rimligt, då Sydafrika för närvarande är det enda aktiva, afrikanska medlemslandet i ISCM.”
[“As usual (and customary), it is the host country that mixes up these selected works with additional programming that may, for example, come from its own recurring festival that it hooks into the ISCM. In the case of this year’s festival organizer, New Music SA, in addition to overcoming the challenges of a country that does not have a strong funding model for cultural life, it has also wanted to match the overwhelming representation of repertoire at the festival that comes from the rest of the world’s continents with works by African composers. This makes sense, as South Africa is currently the only active African member country of the ISCM.”]
–Magnus Bunnskog, “ISCM WNMD 2023 i Johannesburg, Soweto och Kapstaden:
Nya röster, andra röster, gamla röster,” NUTIDA Musik Issue 295-296, Spring/Summer 2024
[in Swedish, translated with help from deepl.com].
“[T]he sheer volume of music presented was extraordinary, usually with between five and seven hours of live performance each day. The festival’s artistic director, Lukas Ligeti, was keen to balance the ‘ISCM pieces’ with a wide range of music by composers from, living in, or connected with the African continent. In addition, it incorporated programmes developed with European partners aiming to integrate and feature experimental music from Africa. Oluzayo—Zulu for ‘what lies ahead’—had taken place in Cologne earlier in the year alongside a conference on African Futures. A similar collaboration—supported by Miso Music (Portugal)—was fostered between New Music SA, the International Music Festival of the Canary Islands, and the ensemble Vertixe Sonora, bringing together world premieres by Iberian and African composers.”
–Ed McKeon, “A Postcard from South Africa (ISCM 2023),”
published on the website of Sound and Music, March 2024.