African Composers

Due to the Corona crisis field research in east and south-central Africa has been limited this year. Only one of us, Dr. Moya A. Malamusi was able to travel to our research area and pursue field research for his forthcoming book about the historical bangwe (zither) players Chitenje Tambale, Limited Mfundo and the living bangwe poet Tsoka la Atsikana.

A last-minute field survey to the shrines of the kings of Buganda was carried out by Sinosi Mlendo in cooperation with Albert Bisaso, in February 2020. This material will be part of Gerhard Kubik's book on the history of entaala (amadinda) xylophone music in the Kingdom of Buganda.

Most of the project work during the summer months was carried out in the office, not in the field. An exception was interview campaign carried out by our team member Mag. Cornelius Pesendorfer with composers among the Tonga speaking people in Zambia. She was unable to travel there due to restrictions, so she tried out this new way of a field interview end it was quite successful.

Gerhard Kubik who was not able to fly to south-east Africa in June, as originally planned pushed forward writing his new book Amadinda Composition Historical background, auditory structures and composers erudition in the Kingdom of Buganda. This work is the first concerted attempt to reconstruct the history of court music compositions from the reigns of King Jjunju and Ssemakookiro in the late 18th century through the periods of 19th century rulers, such as Sauna II, Mutesa I until now.