Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation

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Coordinates: 33°55′52″S 18°51′52″E / 33.93098°S 18.86436°E / -33.93098; 18.86436
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The Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation (AOI) at Stellenbosch University is an interdisciplinary research institute dedicated to music studies. Founded in 2016 by the music scholar and writer Stephanus Muller, the institute provides supervision to postgraduate fellows from a variety of disciplines and functions as an independent research hub in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.[1] Its mission is to create an institutional space for scholars and artists that encourages experimentation and risk taking. AOI's community include postgraduate and postdoctoral fellows, extraordinary professors, research associates, composers, performers, sonic residents, archival and heritage practitioners and international partners.

History[edit]

AOI represents an institutional development of a research-based archive project aimed at collecting and preserving the collections of South African musicians and music scholars: the Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS) at Stellenbosch University founded and headed by Stephanus Muller from 2005 to 2015.[2] By 2015, DOMUS had acquired more than seventy collections that had served as a basis for articles in periodicals, conference papers, postgraduate theses, film screenings, recordings and performances.[3] The archive thus played an important role in contributing to South African heritage and shaping debates on music in South Africa. Due to the scale of its acquisitions as well as institutional pressures, DOMUS was incorporated into a Special Collections Section of the Stellenbosch University Library and Information Services in 2015.[4] A year later, Stephanus Muller founded AOI as a new, autonomous institute in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Stellenbosch University, continuing and extending the music research aspect of the original archive project.

The founding of AOI and its research agenda were also informed by concerns expressed by the Open Stellenbosch student collective,[5][6] and the broader FeesMustFall movement.[7] These concerns related to the politics of exclusion in curricula and research and what was perceived to be the racist ideologies of apartheid South Africa still prevalent at institutions of higher learning. AOI marked 'an institutional reaction to the potentially rejuvenating, potentially destructive energy' of the student movements, and 'an effort to encourage thinking and creative work that could lead to stronger and better universities'.[8] It is therefore significant that the institute was established as an independent organizational research unit outside the Music Department and Conservatoire at Stellenbosch University.

Projects[edit]

AOI has been funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (2016-2020) for a series of research projects entitled Delinking Encounters.[9] These included an ambitious digitization project of music archives in the Documentation Centre for Music, a Sonic Residency programme, [10] a critical edition project headed by Christine Lucia and focused on the music of Michael Mosoeu Moerane, [11] and an interdisciplinary forum for popular music studies, IFPOP.[12] Mellon funding further enabled the creation of an online digital publication spaceherri,[13] curated by the writer and film maker Aryan Kaganof.[14]

The institute is also host to the Hidden Years Music Archive,[15] funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, and is an institutional partner of the ‘Cultural relations between Switzerland and South Africa (1948-1990)’ project, located at the Bern University of the Arts in Switzerland. AOI has partnered with the University of York on the Newton Fellowship programme, entitled ‘South African Jazz Cultures and the Archive’.[16] [17] As a result of this partnership the institute supervised renowned jazz pianists Kyle Shepherd and Nduduzo Makhathini to become the first recipients of MMus-degrees in jazz studies in the history of Stellenbosch University.[18] [19] The institute is also the institutional partner for the Sterkfontein Composers Meeting, for which it has also received funding from the South African National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS).

References[edit]

  1. ^ Muller, Stephanus. "Africa Open looks 100 years ahead to launch music platform for the future". Press Reader. Cape Times. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  2. ^ De Jongh, Santie (2015). ""Armed with a light bulb at the end of a chord": the ten year journey of DOMUS". Fontes Artis Musicae. 62 (3): 213-214.
  3. ^ De Jongh, Santie (2015). "'Armed with a light bulb at the end of a chord: the ten year journey of DOMUS". Fontes Artis Musicae. 62 (3): 220.
  4. ^ Lambrechts, Lizabe (24 August 2020). "The becoming of an archive: perspectives on a music archive and the limits of institutionality". Social Dynamics: 5. doi:10.1080/02533952.2020.1804122.
  5. ^ Op-Ed. "Open Stellenbosch - tackling language and exclusion at Stellenbosch University". Daily Maverick. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  6. ^ Staff Reporter. "Not open, says Open Stellenbosch". Mail and Guardian. Mail and Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  7. ^ Muller, Stephanus (2016). Openings. Stellenbosch: Sun Media. p. 19.
  8. ^ Meyer, Naomi. "Onderhoud met Stephanus Muller: Dekolonisasie van musiek". Litnet. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  9. ^ Mellon Foundation Grants Database. "Stellenbosch University: Delinking Encounters". Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  10. ^ Africa Open Institute. "About Sonic Residency Programme". Africa Open Institute. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  11. ^ Lucia, Christine. "Michael Mosoeu Moerane Scholarly Edition". African Composers Edition. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  12. ^ Vos, Stephane. "Interdisciplinary Forum for Popular Music (IFPOP)". Africa Open Institute. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  13. ^ herri
  14. ^ Davey, Derek. "Our artistic herri-tage online". Mail and Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  15. ^ Lambrechts, Lizabe. "Hidden Years Music Archive". Africa Open Institute. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  16. ^ "South African jazz cultures and the archive". York University. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  17. ^ Eato and Makhathini, Jonathan and Nduduzo. "South African jazz cultures and the archive: the playlist". Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  18. ^ Shepherd, Kyle (2018). Interrogating the own: a practise-based, auto-ethnographic reflection on musical creation with reference to the work of Abdullah Ibrahim, Zim Ngqawana and Kyle Shepherd. Stellenbosch University: Unpublished Master Thesis. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  19. ^ Makhathini, Nduduzo (2018). Encountering Bheki Mseleku: a biographical-analytical consideration of his life and music. Stellenbosch University: Unpublished Master Thesis. Retrieved 25 August 2020.

External links[edit]

33°55′52″S 18°51′52″E / 33.93098°S 18.86436°E / -33.93098; 18.86436

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