Music educators meet in Norway

ANRI HERBST of the SA College of Music (SACM) has returned from a busy time at the 2002 International Society of Music Educators (ISME) conference in Bergen, Norway, where she presented a paper, took part in a public debate, and launched a CD and video recorded at a benefit concert at the Baxter in April.

Herbst, Masters student Sue Rijsdijk and doctoral candidate Joseph Ng'andu, a University Science, Humanities and Engineering Partnerships in Africa (USHEPiA) fellow based at UCT, were among the nearly 1 000 music educators, performers, researchers, students and administrators at the August colloquium. The theme for this year's event was "SAMSPEL – together for our musical future!".

With a strong emphasis on ethno-musical issues at the gathering, Herbst delivered a paper on the research she is doing with Dr Vasan Sreenivasan of the UCT Biomedical Engineering Department. The two are taking Electroencephalogram (EEG) scans of musicians playing on the amadinda, a tricky Ugandan log xylophone, to see which parts of the brain are activated during performance.

Herbst also had the good fortune to meet with Professor Wilfried Gruhn of the Hochschule für Musik, a tertiary music institution in Freiburg, Germany, where he does research in a related field.

In her "orchestrated" and well-attended debate with Professor Meki Nzewi, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Nigeria, Herbst played devil's advocate as the two tackled the thorny issue of African-sensitive music education.

One of the highlights of the event was the launch of a CD and video of Glimpses of Music in Africa, recorded at a benefit concert for the Pan African Society for Musical Arts Education (PASMAE) at the Baxter in April. A number of UCT students and staff members feature among the selection of South African and African performers to appear on the recording.

The CD and video can be bought from Liz Brouckaert at pasmae@zsd.co.za.

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