While there have been many contributors to this programme , each of whome can be seen in the drop-down menus of transcribers, performers and partners, this project was initiated and coordinated by the SAMRO Foundation in response to the very real need for the preservation and promotion of Indigenous African Culture. At the center of the process were the following people:
SAMRO Music Archive Project Officer: Nandipha Mnyani is a passionate indigenous music specialist, who has focused her career on the promotion, education and preservation of all Africa’s musical cultures. She worked as a Programme Administrator at the Centre for Indigenous Instrumental Music and Dance Practices of Africa (CIIMDA) (2009-2012) followed by being an educator for the Gauteng Department of Education’s Magnet Schools (2012-2018) as a music theory and vocal teacher. In 2018 the SAMRO Foundation employed her to spearhead the Indigenous African Music (IAM) transcription programme which is in the final part of its first phase. She holds a Bmus Honours Degree from UCT and is presently reading her Masters in Arts & Culture Management at WITS University.
Composer Monthati Masebe is passionate about Indigenous African Music. She founded the Konka Kontinent, an initiative which aims to creating cross border relations between the arts and culture in Africa. The debut project is an online music archive of thoroughly articulated and original African indigenous music that- unlike most existing archives- is accessible to the general public. While working at the SAMRO Music Archive Monthati offered a great deal of insight and support in the transcriptions of the works in this project.
SAMRO Foundation Manager: Dedicated to arts development, James E French works to promote and encourage the arts in South Africa. He has BMus majoring in composition and a Masters in Arts & Culture management from the University of the Witwatersrand. Having worked as a freelance musician and composer in the classical, jazz and gospel arenas, French’s, most notable projects were cooperative efforts with visual artists. His compositional contributions were listed as a finalist in the Brett Kebble Art Awards and were also featured at the Guangzhou and Venice biennales. His focus turned to arts management in the early 2000’s when he took on the role of the administrator at the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios in Newtown. He worked to sustain the visual arts organisation for 14 years and became its Deputy Director, before handing the organisation over and taking on his present role as the Manager of SAMRO Foundation – the Corporate Social Investment arm of the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) in 2016.
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