South African Choral Music (Amakwaya): Song, Contest and the ...

Introduction
Amakwaya and the Aspect of Identity
It was early 2000 when I had a brief telephone conversation with Sibongile Khumalo, the daughter
of the late Khabi Mngoma. I phoned her to ask permission to access some of her father's material.
However, I never got to that point. After I had introduced myself and told her that my research was
about amakwqya, she asked me why, since we were talking in English, I had used this Zulu word
amakwqya. She insisted that choral music of black choirs was not different from other choral music.
Unfortunately after that argument I never had the opportunity to discuss matters in more depth
with her. However, without knowing it, she gave my research an important direction. On the surface,
our interchange might appear to be about terminology, but when I started looking into the
history of this South African choral tradition in more detail, I found an answer to Khumalo's emotional
response. It was only then that I started to realise the close relation of this tradition to the
identity issue that has haunted the African middle class.
During my involvement with different choral groups, I became aware of significant differences
between those who chose to sing in amakwqya groups, and those who were involved in other forms
of choral music. Amakwqya groups had a specific identity, which the choristers, the conductor and
the organisers were eager to impress on their audiences. To this end, they used four main means of
expression in that performance practice: music, lyrics, dance, and dress.
On reflection, I began to suspect that the identity exhibited by present day amakwqya groups to a
high degree resembled the identity that black middle class amakholwa or "mission people" were busy
constructing from the second half of the nineteenth century onwards. Choral singing, as we shall
see, was used to create class-consciousness and to express the identity of this emerging elite. The
central theoretical concern of this thesis is to show how amakwqya shaped their identity through
choral singing. Two major elements in amakwqya practice - competition and repertoire - are used to
illustrate this process.
The fact that, from the second half of the twentieth century onwards, amakwqya manifested itself
particularly through competition has an important bearing on my discussion of their identity. I
intend to argue in this thesis that, for the amakwqya community, choral competitions have served as
an important vehicle to build, communicate and preserve middle class identity. In the context of a
political system that denied to the black social groups dignity, freedom for development, and the
possibility of participating in a common society with the dominant (i.e. white) culture, choral singing
for the black middle class became a way of communicating their progressivism. It became clear
during my three-year long fieldwork that choral music has continued to play a part in maintaining
the self-esteem of educated middle class Africans. Present day amakwqya competitions, as we will
see in the course of my discussion, have been subject to a certain amount of controversy. To evaluate
their role in the tradition will be an important concern of mine when I come to deal with contemporary
performance practice.
Many aspects of current performance practice reveal a certain ambiguity because of the process
of negotiation between Western and African elements (vocal aesthetics, dress, body movement and
dance etc.) in which amakwqya are still engaged. The degree to which they mediate these two influences
ranges from "simple borrowing" to a "wholesale exchange".8 The process of negotiation is
most obvious in the choice of repertoire. Firstly, the repertoire consists of traditional folk songs (or
rather modernised versions of them), Western classical compositions, and, finally, formally composed
African choral works by mainly mission-trained composers. Secondly, particularly the formal
African compositions reveal an eclectic nature, incorporating African and Western influences in
8 See D. Rycroft, "Evidence of Stylistic Continuity in 'Zulu Town' Music", in Ess'!Ysfor a Humanist: Offering to Klaus
Wachsmann (New York: The Town House Press. Spring Valley, 1971): 133.
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