Cellist Abel Selaocoe: Classical Music with an African Beat

DW (English)

South-African-born cellist Abel Selaocoe fuses African beats with works by baroque composers, producing amazing and original sounds on the cello. He can make it sound like a whistle while he beatboxes to it.

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:06 With unbridled energy, South African cellist and composer Abel Salauchwe

00:11 and the Chinike Orchestra bring the beat into the concert hall.

00:15 [Music]

00:26 Where I come from, we tend to not label things in boxes.

00:30 So when I was given a cello, nobody said, "Play classical music."

00:34 Immediately somebody said, "What sound can you make?"

00:38 And I had to start from the voice, "I can make this kind of sound."

00:41 And immediately I started to explore beyond the bounds of the cello in that sense.

00:47 There's a thing actually that I love to imitate.

00:49 It's called the wata.

00:52 It's a violin from Eritrea and Ethiopia.

00:55 And it sounds like a whistle, like a flute.

00:57 It sounds like this.

00:58 [Music]

01:06 The Chinike Orchestra rehearses in London.

01:09 The musicians learn some of Abel Salauchwe's latest compositions.

01:14 Hi. I hope you're all well.

01:17 So we're going to start today with power.

01:20 And power in the language of Zulu means hero or warrior.

01:24 And this is basically about this idea that children have an incredible curiosity

01:31 and also a kind of wisdom that the community doesn't really get to witness unless they're there.

01:38 So we're going to learn this by ear.

01:40 So one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two.

01:43 That's what I want you to do with your nose.

01:45 One, two, three, and.

01:47 [Music]

01:51 Great. Just that.

01:53 I feel like the survival of classical music is based on it living with other music.

02:00 I feel like for too long classical music has been living in its own room with its own people.

02:07 And I think for it to prosper and for it to be forever here, it needs to live with others.

02:15 [Music]

02:26 I sing in a few languages.

02:27 My father is from the northwest of South Africa, and they speak this language called Zuana.

02:33 And we grew up close to Lesotho, so we speak Sotho as well.

02:37 And my mother is Zulu.

02:40 Abel studied cello at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, and still lives there.

02:47 In 2022, he released his debut album and toured the United States with it.

02:52 When he started learning the cello as a boy in South Africa, he didn't have one of his own and practiced on a broom.

03:00 Sibukeng, this is where I come from, is a place where there's not a lot of money, but there's a lot of creativity.

03:07 And I think it's a very important aspect of society to be able to make things for yourself.

03:13 If you want something and if you imagined it, try make it yourself and see how far you get.

03:19 Now, here we're going to do a little bit of singing.

03:22 Okay, let's do the words first.

03:24 Kale, pizo, lava, dimo.

03:30 It means, "In the name of our ancestors."

03:34 Kale, pizo, lava, dimo.

03:39 The 31-year-old is full of ideas on how to conduct an ensemble in a completely different way.

03:45 A few years back, he was playing as a cellist with the Chinike Orchestra.

03:49 Today, the orchestra plays his compositions.

03:53 Kale, pizo, lava, dimo.

03:59 Abel is extraordinary.

04:01 He's a unique artist.

04:04 And to think that he had all that going on when he was sitting in the cello section, I had no idea.

04:10 You know, I just only saw him as a classical cellist.

04:14 I always knew that he had some other sort of thing going on, but everybody is unique here.

04:26 It isn't always easy to write Abel's music on paper, so the musicians have to keep practicing the right beat until they get it down.

04:36 His energy is contagious.

04:41 I'm always asking myself, "What's important?"

04:45 In the music, I'm also looking to take away the space between the audience and the performer.

04:54 We need to dissolve the boundary in between.

04:57 So that's what I look for with the music, to make people pretty much forget themselves and be reflective.

05:05 Abel Solauchwe is making his mark in the world of classical music and bringing together the traditions of different countries with his compositions.

05:18 [music]

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