The Minnesota Orchestra will be the first professional Orchestra from the United States ever to tour South Africa this August, part of the orchestra’s Sommerfest 2018: “Music for Mandela.”
Sommerfest celebrates Nobel Peace Prize-winning South African leader and human rights advocate Nelson Mandela, as a part of the worldwide celebration for the centenary of his birth. Born on July 18, 1918, Mandela’s life and legacy will be honored in South Africa and across the globe. The Johannesburg-based Nelson Mandela Foundation, which was founded by Mandela to preserve and perpetuate his vision of freedom and equality for all, has planned nearly 50 commemorative events projects planned for the centennial year.
Sommerfest will run from July 13th to August 1st, and will feature ten concerts. Events also include:
International Day of Music: Multiple different music genres on multiple stages for all ages
Mandela Tribute Performance: A performance that will feature both music and speakers
World Premiere: Harmonia Ubuntu by South African composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony: featuring South African soloists and led by Minnesota Orchestra conductor Osmo Vänskä
Minnesota Audiences will be the first to experience the “Music For Mandela” celebration. Just as on the tour, audiences here will experience music that derives from the muscial traditions of South Africa, America, and European countries.
Minnesota Orchestra CEO and President Kevin Smith made the following statement in a press release on the celebration of Mandela and the tour in South Africa: “This is our chance to musically honor a great leader and to share music and goodwill across international borders and right here in Minnesota. It is a unique opportunity to bring cultures together through music, and we are honored to play a role in the Nelson Mandela centenary celebration.”
(Full Sommerfest details will be announced on March 2, with tickets available beginning March 2, for subscribers, and April 6, for single-ticket buyers.)
The Minnesota Orchestra’s tour will launch in Cape Town on August 10th. The tour is presented in partnership with Classical Movements, the international concert tour management company which has done extensive work in South Africa since 1994.
Music Director Vanska and the orchestra will travel across South Africa on a five-city tour. They will be playing in historic City Hall, where Nelson Mandela addressed a crowd of tens of thousands from its balcony after having been released from a prison (a 27-year sentence) in 1990.
The second stop on the tour will be Durban, a coastal city located on the the Indian Ocean. The final three stops are all found in the Gauteng province: Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Soweto.
Soweto is especially significant to the celebration: Soweto is the township where Mandela lived in the 1940’s and 50’s, from which much of his war against apartheid was fought. The orchestra will be playing in Soweto’s Regina Mundi Roman Catholic Church, which has a long history of providing shelter for many anti-apartheid activists and groups during the fight for freedom. It was also the site of Truth and Reconciliation hearings, after Mandela’s release and after the fall of apartheid, in the 1990’s.
The tour is funded by generous contributions from a couple who wishes to remain anonymous. Additional funding for the project is provided by a group of Minnesota-based companies that, currently, includes Ecolab, Land O’Lakes, Medtronic, Pentair, 3M, Target, TCF, Thor Construction, and U.S. Bank.
Minnesota Orchestra Board Chair, Marilyn Carlson, was very grateful for the contributions and had the following to say about the donators: “We are immensely grateful to our individual and corporate donors for making this project possible. We live in an interconnected world and the ‘Music for Mandela’ project underscores this idea, bringing together business support, community members, cultural interests and international performers to harness the power of music by commemorating an iconic visionary of our era.”
