National anthems: South Africa's composers are reimagining themPhilip Miller, a prominent South African composer, has explored the complexities of national anthems in his work.
by The Conversation
17-05-2023 10:02
in Music
Hamilton Dhlamini in The Head & The Load, a production in which composer Philip Miller reworks the British national anthem. Image: The Conversation.
The rousing notes of the British national anthem God Save The King rang loudly in London's Westminster Abbey when King Charles III was crowned - and in official and informal celebrations in many other places, though not always to an enthusiastic reception. The song is still sung in many Commonwealth countries. But its place and the oppressive imperial legacy trailing it are increasingly questioned.
--
That debate can be extended beyond one song. What baggage does any music acquire when it shifts from being - in South African literature scholar Zo Wicomb's phrase - national culture to official culture ?
ALSO READ: Trending Twitter video: Group calling Ramaphosa to resign singing National anthem
As a researcher into South African music, I'm often struck by how dominant the past is in my interviews about the present, particularly in relation to the current anthem. South Africa's national anthem is a composite of the African liberation hymn Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika and the apartheid-era Afrikaans hymn Die Stem (The Call of South Africa). Does a similar burden of history weigh down other national anthems and perhaps prevent us from hearing them simply as music?
--
In recent work, two prominent contemporary composers, Philip Miller in South Africa and Amit Chaudhuri in India, have explored fresh ways of interpreting national anthems. Their projects suggest that anthems can be freed from historical baggage to reflect contemporary realities.
Phillip Miller Miller grew up during apartheid with the enforced singing of Die Stem at school. In an interview with me he recalls:
Coming from a very liberal home instilled almost a horror of national anthems in me.
Yet Nkosi Sikelele doesn't stir similar feelings, because it's a really beautiful song that has a historical genesis in African liberation, so the meanings it carries are very different .
--
Miller and co-composer Thuthuka Sibisi had explored the meaning of singing South Africa's former colonial anthem, God Save the King, for Victorian-era African choristers in an earlier project. That work formed the foundation for the version of the anthem in their score for the stage production The Head & The Load, about the unacknowledged role of African labour in the colonial armies of the first world war.
ALSO READ: SA's Rouge raps up ICC Women's T20 World Cup anthem [watch]
South African composer Philip Miller. Madelene Cronje When political regimes sour, even beautiful anthems can lose their beauty, and we can start feeling alienation instead.
University students during South Africa's Fees Must Fall protests created what they christened a decolonised national anthem. They retained Nkosi Sikelele's opening verse but set it to a new melody. New lyrics highlighted hard times when we are painfully abused .
Amit Chaudhuri contemporary national anthem Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika is not the only contemporary national anthem with roots in early anticolonial struggles. India's national anthem is Jana Gana Mana. It was composed by poet, artist and thinker Rabindranath Tagore in 1911. Its Bengali lyrics invoke a spirit of unity in diversity.
Amit Chaudhuri, Indian musician and author. Indranil Bhoumik/Mint via Getty Images ALSO READ: Flashback Friday: Anlia belts out the national anthem before Eben's 100th Bok Test
Chaudhuri, a novelist, critic and classically trained Hindustani singer, reimagines Jana Gana Mana on his most recent album, Across the Universe. Chaudhuri's project explores what he calls musical convergences : music grounded in the sonic contact he hears between compositions from diverse traditions.
His version of Jana Gana Mana is released from its former strict, anthemic marching rhythm into free time. It flowers out of a composition by Austrian keyboardist Joe Zawinul of the jazz fusion group Weather Report. The way the sound develops is paralleled on the accompanying video, where an image of the Indian flag flowers from shadowed and superimposed partial views.
Chaudhuri told me in email correspondence he is treating Tagore's composition as a piece of music. He views it not as a nationalistic commodity but as an aesthetic creation by the greatest songwriter of our time , rich with possibilities. The originality of Tagore's own musical approach - always gathering and repositioning the material he was collecting from every source in his songs - encouraged Chaudhuri to create an open-ended sense of estrangement, surprise, and unexpectedness that situates the anthem in history, but not in the history that we are told, one way or another, about ourselves or our country through books and historiography .
Burden of history Miller isn't sure it's possible to shear away the baggage from music, however beautiful, once it's been appropriated to power. He points out that before Nkosi Sikelele was adopted, the ANC anthem was South African composer Reuben Caluza's iLand Act. This was a far more strident anti-colonial protest song. Miller recorded it with a choral collective in 2020, at the very moment when the City of Cape Town was evicting informal settlers - including dragging a man naked out of his home. That was ironic - who's to say what South Africa's people's anthem really is?
Many Britons, equally, view God Save the King as contested territory. Some urge a replacement. They cite British poet William Blake's Jerusalem (invoking reform of in
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
National anthems: South Africa's composers are reimagining themPhilip Miller, a prominent South African composer, has explored the complexities of national anthems in his work. 
