Music
PHOTO: MOTLHALEFI MAHLABE, SOUTH PHOTOGRAPHS
New hope for the future. Students at the Music Academy of Gauteng in Johannesburg are taught music free of
charge. Many of them are street children, and several have gone on to become professional musicians.
Enabling young people a chance to
learn how to play, dance and sing,
preferably based on their own traditions, is the core of Sida’s music support. But it is also about trying to
preserve an endangered musical heritage.
As an art form, music transcends boundaries
of all kinds; lets performers and their audience communicate without linguistic barriers; and inspires curiosity and respect for
various countries’ cultures. Music also plays
a key commercial role for many countries.
For those without an established music
industry or laws to protect musicians’ copyright, however, the exploitation risk is high.
Payment for record sales and radio broadcasts often goes to middlemen instead of
music producers themselves.
Traditional music is threatened in the
countries that cooperate with Sida. Refined,
ancient music traditions and knowledge
handed down for generations are in danger
of disappearing in a world of music dominated by commercial forces.
Sida supports:
• music schools, especially in disadvan-
taged areas with a youthful population
• music research, research on music, and
development of methods
• student and teacher exchange between
Sweden and the cooperating countries
• networks and conferences for professional music teachers
• documentation and systematisation of
musical heritage at risk of disappearing
• organisations or networks that work for
legislation in the copyright area.
Sida’s priorities for music support
Half the population in most of Sida’s cooperating countries are under 18, and Sida
therefore gives priority to youth music
schools. Minority groups whose musical
styles and history are at risk of falling into
oblivion in the commercialised world of
music are another important category of
recipients.
Folk music from all over the world
With the Swedish Concert Institute, Sida
supports documentation of traditional
music, which is an invaluable cultural treasure. The Institute and the Caprice record
company have recorded about ten CD-roms
of traditional music from Guatemala,
Vietnam, Ecuador, Uganda, Ethiopia, Cape
Verde and elsewhere. Alongside the recording work, facts are collected about the
music. The CD-roms are distributed to the
public agencies of the countries concerned,
embassies around the world, and also to
record companies, radio stations and musicians’ organisations that can help to publicise the music. Not only have the recordings
given traditional music a higher profile in
the musicians’ home countries, but some of
the musicians have also entered the world
market, with tours in Europe and the USA,
and records of their own issued by major
global music companies.
National Music Conservatory
in Ramallah
In the West Bank, children and young people with an interest in and talent for music
seldom get skilled instruction. Sida’s contribution to the National Music Conservatory
in Ramallah gives even poor children
access. Support is channelled direct to the
children in the form of grants, and also into
in-service training of music teachers.
Forms of assistance
Sida gives priority to long-term programmes
for its music support. Cooperation between
institutions in Sweden and the cooperating
countries has proved highly workable.
countries. All in all, Sida’s support reaches
more than 5,000 young people and adults
annually, and in-service training of elementary and secondary school teachers ensures
better teaching for children in some 700
classrooms. Most of Sweden’s support goes to
NGO schools –– independent schools that
provide education for underprivileged groups
in the townships of Cape Town, Durban and
Johannesburg. In 2000, five NGO schools
received Swedish music support.
One major project for teachers’ in-service
training is ‘Teacher Training in African
Music and Dance’, at the University of
Natal in Durban. The project sets out to
pick out township musicians and place them
in classrooms. Activities therefore include
research, teaching and in-service training.
Under the Government’s and Sida’s
‘Partnership Africa’ policy, there has been
exchange of students and teachers between
the School of Music and Musicology at
Göteborg University and the University of
Natal since 1998. Four students and four
university teachers from each country take
part annually in exchanges lasting two to
five weeks. Another exchange project,
between the University of Cape Town and
Åstorp municipal music school, has been
developed. A research network linking
Swedish and South African music teachers
is also being set up.
Policy
Sida’s policy for culture and media cooperation has several aims for music support:
• to help children and young people to
participate in creative activities
• to bring about sustainable use and
preservation of the cultural heritage
• to assist cultural and media production
in the cooperating countries
• to promote internationalisation to safeguard countries’ cultural distinctiveness and
offset global homogenisation.
Contacts: Göteborg University School of Music and Musicology: Stig-Magnus Thorsén, phone +46-31-773 40
24, e-mail: [email protected]
National Music Conservatory in Ramallah: Huda Odeh, e-mail: [email protected]
Swedish Concert Institute: Sten Sandahl, e-post: [email protected], phone +46-8-407 16 00
Sida’s Culture and Media Division: tel vx +4-8-698 50 00, www.sida.se
Internet links: Göteborg University School of Music and Musicology, www.music.gu.se/ • Swedish Concert
Institute/Caprice: www.srk.se • University of Natal in Durban, www.nu.ac.za/nu • University of Cape Town,
www.uct.ac.za
SIDA1638en
Göteborg University School of Music
& Musicology and South Africa
Sida has supported music education in South
Africa since 1985. In 1994, the School of
Music and Musicology at Göteborg
University began mediating this support, and
also acting as a partner to various organisations in South Africa. Support is given to
music schools, teachers’ in-service training,
networks and conferences in South Africa,
and student and teacher exchange between