{"id":3548,"date":"2025-06-25T23:15:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T03:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=3548"},"modified":"2025-06-25T23:35:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T03:35:37","slug":"a-service-to-the-nation-the-university-of-michigan-symphony-orchestra-tours-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2025\/06\/a-service-to-the-nation-the-university-of-michigan-symphony-orchestra-tours-south-africa.html","title":{"rendered":"“A Service to the Nation” — The University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra Tours South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"
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South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office with United States President Donald Trump<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\u00a0most recent More than Music documentary<\/a>\u00a0on NPR ponders the South African tour of the remarkable University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, led by Kenneth Kiesler. The tour happened to coincide with inflamed relations between South Africa and President Donald Trump. I conclude: \u201cDuring the long Cold War decades, the US\u00a0sent musicians abroad to countries where we were competing for influence with other major powers — where we were insufficiently known or not sympathetically understood. South Africa is such a country today \u2013 right now. The University of Michigan tour showered credit on the university and its young musicians. It also, I would suggest, performed a service to the nation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recurrent theme, in the show, is the rule of law \u2013 and an impression, in South Africa, that at present it\u2019s more reliable there (where ex-President Jacob Zuma was tried, convicted, and imprisoned) than in the United States. Another is that the Trump Presidency, for some South Africans, triggers memories of the apartheid decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andries Coetzee, who accompanied the tour, is a University of Michigan Linguistics professor who was born and raised in South Africa. He testifies to the urgency of exposing American college students to other cultures, and the commensurate importance of welcoming foreign students at American universities. And he told me a startling story about a meeting at the University of Western Cape, which has long partnered the University of Michigan. Once a Black university under apartheid, University of Western Cape is now \u201ca powerhouse in South African education, representing the country as a whole,\u201d Coetzee said. \u201cWhat was very moving to me . . . was when members of the leadership team turned to us, representing the University of Michigan, and said: . . .  \u2018Now you are in a situation in the US where higher education is under severe duress and oppression. . . .  We have a lot of experience over decades on how to exist under such conditions. How can we now help you?’\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another participant in the NPR show is Christopher Ballantine, South Africa\u2019s pre-eminent music historian and, at 82, a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle. Like Coetzee, he  acknowledges the formidable challenges South Africa faces today, including rampant Black unemployment. Like Coetzee, he\u2019s optimistic about the country\u2019s future.  Chris regularly reports on South African opera for the British journal Opera<\/em>. He told me that my recent experience of Aida<\/em> in Cape Town \u2013 the subject of a previous blog<\/a> — was a truthful experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s made South African opera so rich in Black vocal talent is the long tradition of choral singing in South Africa. Thousands of choirs. . . . When this Black singing talent is brought into the opera house, before audiences that are unfortunately still largely white — although that\u2019s slowly changing — then you do get this bridging. The rapturous applause is not just rapturous applause at superlative singing, it\u2019s also rapturous applause because people are coming together in a way that never used to be possible. You see that all the time. Not only at concerts. . . . If you go to important sports matches in South Africa \u2013 the rugby world cup, for example, which South Africa has now won on the last two occasions — there\u2019s an enormous sense of national pride and national unity around that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I asked Chris Ballantine if classical music in South Africa is stigmatized as “colonial.” He replied: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is of course a keen awareness of the colonial legacy here. But it\u2019s not used in any kind of punitive way. And that\u2019s unlikely ever to occur. If you think of the fact that South Africa is one of the most multi-cultural countries in the world. The constitution guarantees cultural diversity. It guarantees the right of all 12 official languages to exist side by side. What that means is that this recent nonsense about white genocide in South Africa is just that. It\u2019s total fabrication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also chat with South Africa\u2019s leading classical music impresario, Bongani Tembe, who runs the orchestras in Durban and Johannesburg, and in 2022 founded a national South Africa orchestra with government support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In two previous blogs<\/a>, I deployed video clips to document the transformative impact of the young Michigan musicians in Soweto, Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Cape Town. On the NPR show, you can sample their performance of one of the peak achievements in Black classical music: William Levi Dawson\u2019s Negro Folk Symphony<\/em> (1932). It\u2019s a piece I\u2019ve written about a lo<\/a>t. Kiesler\u2019s reading, in South Africa, was the strongest I’ve ever heard, superior to all the commercial recordings. As I remark on NPR: \u201cThese highly skilled pre-professional musicians comprise one of the least jaded, most engaged symphonic ensembles I\u2019ve ever come across\u201d \u2013 a topic that connects to my recent report<\/a>, in the New York Review of Books<\/em>, on Aida<\/em> at the Metropolitan Opera (and its jaded musicians). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my NPR show, I award the last word to the orchestra\u2019s remarkable conductor. Ken Kiesler had no idea, when he chose South Africa for his orchestra\u2019s first tour abroad, that the visit would coincide with the expulsion of South Africa\u2019s ambassador to the US. It made the tour all the more meaningful, Kiesler said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t cultural diplomacy the sort of natural result of simply being authentic and sharing ourselves with others and receiving how they are with respect, even with admiration and love? When we remove what happens between governments, and government leaders, it\u2019s just people listening to each other. Its such a beautiful experience that connects us .  . And I think we should do more of it, all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kiesler added that he initially considered taking his orchestra to the major halls of Europe. \u201cIt didn\u2019t inspire me, and I knew it was the wrong thing.\u201d South Africa \u201cfelt like the right place and the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P.S. \u2013 As my NPR colleague Jenn White observes, More than Music is no longer supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities \u2013 allocated <\/strong>funds were cancelled<\/a>. WAMU, our host station, is currently seeking alternative sources of sponsorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To hear a pertinent More than Music show on cultural diplomacy click <\/em>here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My pertinent book, on the cultural Cold War, is \u201c<\/strong><\/em>The Propaganda of Freedom.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LISTENING GUIDE<\/strong> (to hear the show, click here<\/a>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3:00 — Kenneth Kiesler on the Soweto experience<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7:25 — Andries Coetzee on the Soweto experience<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12:00 — The University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra surges through the first movement coda of the Dawson symphony<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14:30 — Kiesler on the Dawson symphony and South Africa<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15:45 — The UMSO plays “Hope in the Night” — movement two of the Dawson symphony<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21:00 — Bongani Tembe on classical music in South Africa today<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26:30 — Christopher Ballantine on South African pride<\/p>\n\n\n\n

28:30 — The UMSO nails the ending of the Dawson symphony<\/p>\n\n\n\n

31:00 — A dozen at the District Six museum describes a disappointing visit of Columbia University students<\/p>\n\n\n\n

32:00 — Coetzee on the urgency of global engagement<\/p>\n\n\n\n

39:00 — Coetzee on the University of Western Cape’s offer to help the University of Michigan <\/p>\n\n\n\n

42:00 — Final observations from Kenneth Kiesler<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in the Oval Office with United States President Donald Trump My\u00a0most recent More than Music documentary\u00a0on NPR ponders the South African tour of the remarkable University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra, led by Kenneth Kiesler. The tour happened to coincide with inflamed relations between South Africa and President Donald Trump. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-Ve","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3548"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3559,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548\/revisions\/3559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}