Bongani Ndodana-Breen

Bongani Ndodana-Breen Composer.

Training

Matriculated at St Andrew’s College, Grahamstown, and in 1994 won a South African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) bursary to Rhodes University. Ndodana-Breen graduated from Rhodes University with a PhD in Music Composition.

Career

He was Director of the Canadian new music organization Ensemble Noir from 1999 – 2007 touring to Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. He returned to South Africa in 2007 after working in Canada for a decade.

Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance

Bongani Ndodana-Breen has written a wide range of music encompassing symphonic work, opera, chamber music and vocal music, including:

• Themba and Seliba (1997)
• Uhambo (1998)
• Lives of African Women: Umuntu, Threnody & Dances (2000)
• Hani (2010)
• Winnie, the Opera (2011)
• Credo (2013)

Awards

He was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music in 1998 and selected as one of the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans of 2011.

Sources

Wayne Muller. 2018. A reception history of opera in Cape Town: Tracing the development of a distinctly South African operatic aesthetic (1985–2015). Unpublished PhD thesis.

Official website. https://www.ndodanabreen.com/bio/

Denise Louw. 'SA’s first Xhosa opera'. Mail & Guardian. 13 December 1996.

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