Michael Blake

Music not of place, but of time. Blake is not unsure of who he is and where he lives. He is not obsessed with Africa, nor is he chained to ‘the West’. He is perhaps the first South African composer to be unselfconsciously an African composer. His are the blueprints and stratagems of a new cosmopolitan South African sound.

— The Musical Times (Winter 2011)

Projects

The Bow Project

Nofinishi Dywili at Lumko Institute c. 1981

The Bow Project was launched in 2002 by Michael Blake as a project of NewMusicSA’s annual New Music Indaba at the National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. The original artistic objective of the project was to encourage South African composers to engage with traditional music as a compositional resource.

Sterkfontein Composers Meeting

Sterkfontein Group inside Standing Stone Circle

The Sterkfontein Composers Meeting is a masterclass for young and emerging composers held annually at the Nirox Foundation. The unique setting, within the Cradle of Humankind, provides the ideal environment in which young composers can learn and create.

Film Excerpts

SMS Sugarman (2006)

The first feature film to be shot entirely on cellphone cameras.

A Question of Madness (aka The Furiosus; 1998)

Documentary about Dmitri Tsafendas, who assassinated South African prime minister Dr Verwoerd in 1966.

Bethlehem Reborn (2003)

Music scored for clarinet, celesta and strings.

The Colour Fields (1999)

Music scored for flute, cello and harpsichord.

Discography

Complete Works for Solo Piano 1994-2004

Ensemble Bash: Damba Moon

Thalia Myers: Spectrum 4

Spectrum 4 - available at UsK Recordings

Nightingale String Quartet / Nofinishi Dywili: The Bow Project

Nightingale String Quartet: The Bow Project

Performing

Michael Blake took piano lessons from the age of 9 at the South African College of Music, Cape Town. His teachers included Sheila Rossouw and Ashley Hartley. From At Wits University, and subsequently, he studied with Adolph Hallis, a former pupil of Leschetitzky. In Europe he attended masterclasses with Aloys Kontarsky and Charles Rosen, and at various time had lessons with Katarina Wolpe and John Tilbury.

Biography

Composer Michael Blake has been described by musicologist Stephanus Muller as "the most important and most influential South African art music composer to have worked in South Africa since the advent of democracy" (introduction to a Colloquium, 21 September 2009, Stellenbosch University).