Scriptions of the Choral: The Historiography of Black South African Choralism

An aporia exists in the South African musical scene: black choralism’s compelling presence in contemporary South Africa — it is the largest participatory form of musicking in the country — is marked by its absence from the academy’s library shelves. We may naively wish to chalk this lack down to scholarly choice, but I choose instead to proceed from the commonplace that our research tastes are politically informed. This essay focusses on two moments in the historiography of black choralism. The work on choralism by the first generation ethnomusicologists, specifically Percival R. Kirby, provides an opportunity to re-evaluate their scholarship as well as revisit the charge of their collaboration with segregationist/apartheid thought. More recent ethnomusicology’s (non)engagement with black choralism affords similar insights into its workings. The erasure and misrepresentation of choralism in recent histories of black South African musicking is traced to the narrative form that structures, and the ideology of resistance which informs, their writing.South African Journal of Musicology Vol.22 2002: 29-4