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6
Contents
editorial
KEVIN DAVIDSON
“Soulbrother #1”
TESHOME GABRIEL
Ruin and The Other: Towards a Language Of Memory
MLADEN DOLAR
Singing in Pursuit of the Object Voice
Theme Graham Newcater
STEPHANUS MULLER
Sapphires and serpents: In Search of Graham Newcater
ARYAN KAGANOF
Of Fictalopes and Jictology (2018)
MEGAN-GEOFFREY PRINS
Toccata for Piano (2012): The gift of newness
OLGA LEONARD
The Leonard Street Meetings (2008-2012)
ARYAN KAGANOF
Her first concert - 15 October 2011
STEPHANUS MULLER & GRAHAM NEWCATER
Interview (2008, transcribed 2010)
AMORÉ STEYN
The Properties of the Raka Tone Row as seen within the Context of other Newcaterian Rows
STEPHANUS MULLER
The Island
GRAHAM NEWCATER
CONCERTO in E Minor Op. 5 (1958)
ARNOLD VAN WYK
A Letter from Upper Orange Street, 14th June 1958
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Concert Overture Op. 8 (1962-3)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Variations For Orchestra Op 11 (1963)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Nr.1 Klange An Thalia Myers (1964)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Allegretto e Espressivo (1966)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Variations de Timbres (1967)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
String Quartet (1983/4)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Songs of the Inner Worlds (1991)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
ETUDE I For Horn with Piano Accompaniment (2012)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
ETUDE II For Horn with Piano Accompaniment (2012)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
SONATINA for Pianoforte (2014)
GRAHAM NEWCATER
CANTO for Pianoforte (2015)
LIZABÉ LAMBRECHTS
The DOMUS Graham Newcater Collection Catalogue
galleri
TAFADZWA MICHAEL MASUDI
Waiting For A Better Tomorrow
ILZE WOLFF
Summer Flowers
NIKKI FRANKLIN
Sans Visage
BAMBATHA JONES
Below the Breadline
TRACY PAYNE
Veiled
STAN ENGELBRECHT
Miss Beautiful
ALEKSANDAR JEVTIĆ
We Are The Colour of Magnets and also Their Doing
GRAHAM NEWCATER
Augenmusik & Some Tarot Cards
EUGENE SKEEF
Monti wa Marumo!
borborygmus
PASCALE OBOLO
Electronic Protest Song As Resistance Through the Creation of Sound
AXMED MAXAMED & MATHYS RENNELA
A Conversation on the Bleaching of Techno: How Appropriation is Normalized and Preserved
FANA MOKOENA
A problem of classification
PHIWOKAZI QOZA
Choreographies of Protest Performance:
MASIXOLE MLANDU
On Fatherhood in South Africa
VULANE MTHEMBU
We are ancestors in our lifetime – AI and African data
TIMBAH
All My Homies Hate Skrillex – a story about what happened with dubstep
TETA DIANA
Three Sublime Songs
LAWRENCE KRAMER
Circle Songs
NEIL TENNANT
Euphoria?
frictions
LYNTHIA JULIUS
Vyf uit die Kroes
NGOMA HILL
This Poem Is Free
MSIZI MOSHOETSI
Five Poems
ABIGAIL GEORGE
Another Green World
OMOSEYE BOLAJI
People of the Townships
RIAAN OPPELT
The Escape
DIANA FERRUS
Daai Sak
KUMKANI MTENGWANA
Two Poems
VADIM FILATOV
Azsacra: Nihilism of Dancing Comets, The Destroyer of the Destroyers
claque
ZAKES MDA
Culture And Liberation Struggle In South Africa: From Colonialism To Apartheid (Edited By Lebogang Lance Nawa)
MPHUTHUMI NTABENI
The Promise of genuine literary stylistic innovation
ZUKISWA WANNER
[BR]OTHER – Coffee table snuff porn, or...?
SEAN JACOBS
Davy Samaai The People's Champion
KNEO MOKGOPA
I Still See The Sun/ The Dukkha Economy
CHRISTINE LUCIA
Resonant Politics, Opera and Music Theatre out of Africa
ARI SITAS
The Muller’s Parable
ZIMASA MPEMNYAMA
CULTURE Review: The Lives of Black Folk
RIAAN OPPELT
Club Ded: psychedelic noir in Cape Town
DYLAN VALLEY
Nonfiction not non-fiction (not yet)
DEON MAAS
MUTANT - a crucial documentary film by Nthato Mokgata and Lebogang Rasethaba
GEORGE KING
Unknown, Unclaimed, and Unloved: Rehabilitating the Music of Arnold Van Wyk
THOMAS ROME
African Art As Philosophy: Senghor, Bergson, And The Idea Of Negritude. By Souleymane Bachir Diagne.
SIMBARASHE NYATSANZA
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Making Africa visible in an upside-down World
ekaya
BRIDGET RENNIE-SALONEN & YVETTE HARDIE
Creating a healthy arts sector ecosystem: The Charter of Rights for South African Artists
KOPANO RATELE
What Use Would White Students Have For African Psychology?
NICKI PRIEM
The Hidden Years of South African Music
INGE ENGELBRECHT
“Die Kneg” – pastor Simon Seekoei in conversation.
SCORE-MAKERS
Score-making
off the record
BARBARA BOSWELL
Writing as Activism: A History of Black South African Women’s Writing
MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
MUSIC AS THE GOSPEL OF LIBERATION: Religio-Spiritual Symbolism and Invocation of Martyrs of Black Consciousness in the Azanian Freedom Songs
IGNATIA MADALANE
From Paul to Penny: The Emergence and Development of Tsonga Disco (1985-1990s) Pt.2
ADAM GLASSER
In Search of Mr. Paljas
TREVOR STEELE TAYLOR
Censorship, Film Festivals and the Temperature at which Artworks and their Creators Burn
PATRIC TARIQ MELLET
The Camissa Museum – A Decolonial Camissa African Centre of Memory and Understanding @ The Castle of Good Hope
IKERAAM KORANA
The Episteme of the Elders
OLU OGUIBE
Fela Kuti
MICHAEL TAUSSIG
Walter Benjamin’s Grave
ANTHONY BURGESS
On the voice of Joyce
feedback
FRÉDÉRIC SALLES
This is not a burial, it’s a resurrection : Cinema without the weight of perfection.
FACEBOOK FEEDBACK
Social Media Responses to herri 5
the selektah
boeta gee
Hoor Hoe Lekker Slat’ie Goema - (An ode to the spirit of the drum)
PhD
MARY RÖRICH
Graham Newcater's Orchestral Works: Case Studies in the Analysis of Twelve-Tone Music
hotlynx
shopping
contributors
the back page
DANIEL MARTIN
Stuttering From The Anus
© 2024
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    #06
  • Theme Graham Newcater

OLGA LEONARD

The Leonard Street Meetings (2008-2012)

I ponder life
like frantic molecules
magnified beyond
man’s comprehension

Thoughts of a genius
twisted and macabre
hills and valleys
no ultimate linear

Like burning labyrinths
clutching at the mind
nowhere an answer
a vortex of pain

This poem by Graham Newcater is an accurate summary of my recollection of Graham. We worked together from 2008 to 2011.

I stumbled upon the name Graham Newcater in the search of a topic for my mini-dissertation while working towards my master’s degree in Performing Arts. I read through Composers in South Africa Today (Klatzow) and having a special interest in serial music, the chapter about Newcater caught my attention. I soon made up my mind that this will be an interesting study to pursue. 

Getting hold of Graham was a different story: I contacted Amoré Steyn, who previously did some research in this field, and she provided a postal address. This was around March 2008, and although we were not as technologically driven as we are now, posting a letter was already quite outdated, and exciting!

Graham Newcater was born in Johannesburg on 3 September 1941, but his family relocated to Durban in 1948. He started piano lessons in Johannesburg, but continued with the clarinet in Durban on doctor’s orders. Graham suffered from Tuberculosis and the suggestion was to learn to breathe in a disciplined way.

Graham is largely a self-taught composer and actually a trained mechanical engineer. He had formal training after being awarded a SAMRO scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music. His interest in twelve-tone music started when he first heard the Violin Concerto by Alban Berg:

“I didn’t know what that was all about and so I listened to all these very strange sounds – not sounding like any music I have ever heard before which I didn’t understand at all, but nevertheless, I was very fascinated by this strange, compelling power. This made me realise that this is the sound world I want to inhabit.”

from a transcript I made of an interview between Stephanus Muller and Graham Newcater, 2008

I am sorry that I didn’t keep record of my side of the correspondence, but looking through my files I found many of Graham’s letters, the earliest one dating back to 12 May 2008.

Graham was immediately interested and helpful. I made an appointment to see him and drove from Pretoria to Kenilworth, Johannesburg one Friday morning. I got terribly lost, but eventually found my way to Leonard Street.

Graham, at the time, lived a very modest life. He had a telephone (landline) and wrote letters on his typewriter. He read the newspaper daily, but he wasn’t able to access news and information at his fingertips, and this cut him off from the academic music world.

Graham was eager to chat about his work. He was keen to hear news from the academic institutions and people working there. Our first meeting lasted several hours in which he entertained me with stories of Arnold van Wyk, his childhood, his career and showing me his collection of symphony scores. Graham also mentioned that he had recordings of most of his compositions (I was specifically working on the analysis of his First String Quartet), but these were on tapes, and his tape-recorder was broken. He trusted me with these and I endeavoured to have the recordings put on CD. I bought a CD player to take with on my next visit. Graham also gave permission for me to keep a copy of these recordings, for future reference.

Graham Newcater, Threnos

I remember him being very generous with his knowledge and what he could contribute, he did. Graham and I spoke at length about poetry, art and traveling. He was always slightly amused when speaking about a poet or artist I did not know, especially since I advocated a computer and internet many times. It seems that I was the only one needing Google.

I moved to Cape Town in 2010 and I visited Graham twice more when I had meetings in Pretoria. I would fly to OR Tambo, rent a car, go straight to Leonard Street and catch up with Graham.

Graham often mentioned to me that he was not academically celebrated because he never taught at any of the universities as a full time lecturer, or held a resident composer position. I think it is quite normal that he yearned for recognition. I was very happy to be contacted by Stephanus Muller at Stellenbosch University in this regard: Graham had given him my contact details since they were planning to include Graham in their documentation centre for South African composers. I provided Stephanus with copies of recordings, original manuscripts and information.

In October 2011 Graham was invited to Stellenbosch to receive an award. The ceremony took the shape of a concert and Graham wrote Flowers from the Garden of Forever (dedicated to me) to be premiered at this concert. It is also interesting to note that this is not a twelve-tone composition but bitonal instead. It later formed the second movement of From the Garden of Forever. I had the honour of performing this premiere, as well as Three Pieces for Violin and Piano with violinist Tricia Theunissen. The evening was concluded with a cocktail party and this was the last time I saw Graham. Interestingly, Athol Fugard was also in the audience that evening. It was a memorable event that I will cherish forever.

Graham and I have since lost contact. I think of him often and always fondly.

“Music is all math anyway. Leave it to an engineer to find a smarter way to do it.”

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MEGAN-GEOFFREY PRINS
ARYAN KAGANOF
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Archive About Contact Africa Open Institute