Stefans Grové (*1922), regarded by many as Africa’s greatest living composer, possesses one of the most distinctive compositional voices of our time. He studied in Cape Town under Erik Chisholm before becoming the first South African to be awarded a Fulbright Scholarship. He took his Master’s at Harvard under Walter Piston, attended Aaron Copland’s composition class at the Tanglewood Summer School, and subsequently taught for over a decade at the renowned Peabody Institute in Baltimore before returning to his African roots in the early 1970s. Stefans Grové is today Composer in Residence at the University of Pretoria. Grové was arguably the first composer to incorporate Black African elements into the very fabric of his music, venturing far beyond mere couleur locale to forge a unique creative synthesis of the indigenous and the ‘Western’. His vast oeuvre encompasses every genre, from opera and ballet to chamber music, orchestral works and song. But he is also a fine essayist, and his short fiction has received praise from no less a figure than André P. Brink. This is the first study of its kind to be devoted to a South African composer, and includes a complete list of Grové’s works and writings. Quelle: Musikbibliothek Pretoria
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Stefans Grové (*1922)