The people who collect, think and write about music
The people of the Africa Open Institute (AOI) are serious about music. That does not stop them from having fun in the process, to enjoy the camaraderie of fellow researchers and to push boundaries.
It's Tuesday morning. In the heart of the AOI's offices in Joubert Street in Stellenbosch, the Institute's weekly teatime ritual of shop-bought cookies and full-aroma coffee is in full swing before the scheduled staff meeting is to start. Amid laughter and fellowship around a long table, two colleagues are comparing notes while seated around a laptop's screen.
“My colleagues and the openness with which we work together is a major part of what my career means to me, and how it has developed. I cannot distinguish the two," it comes in all seriousness from Prof Willemien Froneman, the AOI's director of postgraduate studies as she introduces her colleagues one by one. "They are the Institute."
Froneman, a Y2-rated researcher, is the second speaker in the SU Division for Research Development's new Forward with Research Impact lecture series. It takes place on Thursday, 29 August at the SU Museum at 13:00.
She will reflect on her research about the ambivalent place that boeremusiek holds within the South African society, as well as about the activities of the AOI.
The AOI is an independent interdisciplinary research institute of the SU Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and was established in 2016 under the guidance of Prof Stephanus Muller. It has links with the SU Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS). It creates an institutional space for voices within and outside formal academic circles to conduct research, innovate and provide socio-political commentary - all within the sphere of archiving music practices from South Africa and Africa.
Forging ahead through music
Froneman was previously linked to the AOI as an extraordinary associate professor of the AOI. Earlier this year she was appointed as the Institute's director of postgraduate studies. She takes care of fundraising and as a study leader guides students' research. The doctoral projects she is currently keeping an eye on are like postcards that provide a glimpse into the themes that the AOI tackles. For example, there is a study on the "koortjie" phenomenon, one on the place of wind bands in South Africa since 1987, and another on the difficulties that women experience within the sphere of music education. Another student is creating an art installation and is making use of music from the DOMUS collection.
“We want to establish music as a legitimate field of research that people take seriously. We work a lot between disciplines. We do it differently than a previous generation of music researchers did. We are more socially aware and definitely more focused on interacting with other humanities," Froneman reckons.
Her own academic path began in Potchefstroom, where she grew up in the home of a professor of Afrikaans and Dutch. In 2004 Froneman obtained a BMus degree (with piano) at Northwest University cum laude – as she would do for most of her later qualifications too. This includes a BA Hons in Literature Studies (2004) and an education qualification. In 2007, she completed an MPhil at Cambridge University thanks to a Commonwealth Scholarship.
After a year abroad, she deliberately decided to research niche themes specific to South African music and the country's history. That decision in 2012 led to her PhD at SU, entitled Pleasure Beyond the Call of Duty: Perspectives, Retrospectives and Speculations on boeremusiek. Later, with her supervisor and current AOI director, Prof Stephanus Muller, she became involved in the editing and management of SAMUS, the journal for studies on South African music.
Froneman says there's no clear boundaries to her field of research. It's about more than collating historical data about people and events. She also wants to reflect on the place that a genre such as boeremusiek has within an unequal political system.
Boeremusiek tells the story of South Africa's history and race-based values. It's different from the one that we think we know. More complicated. Stranger. Closer to the body. I see writing about it as a kind of historical restitution," explains Froneman, who believes that such an in-depth investigation into Afrikaans popular music has not yet been undertaken on the same scale.
Music that chaffs
Her interests have already taken her from Britain to Brazil, Germany and the Netherlands to talk about her research. Last year, she contributed a 4000-word essay on peasant music to the Bloomsbury Encyclopaedia of Popular Music of the World: African Genres (2018).
And her own music tastes?
"There is nothing that I will not listen to. Nothing," she emphasizes.
She's willing to listen to anything Apple Music or her colleagues alert her to. She deliberately wants to give new music a chance.
“It's a perk of being here at the AOI. There are always music that you listen to that you've never heard before. It challenges you. There are constantly new ideas that at first might be counter to your own flow. Then you give it a chance. This environment challenges your boundaries and ideas about things. It's often difficult, but it's great too."
She hopes that the AOI will increasingly be able to play a similar challenging, transformational role in the broader Stellenbosch community by hosting events that do not shy away from addressing socio-political problems, attract new audiences and challenge those already in the know.
“We want to use music to write revisionist histories of South Africa, and at the same time make an impact on the here and now. That's what I also want to do with my research on boeremusiek."
• On September 9, 10 and 11 at 17:00 Prof Chris Ballantine will give an overview at the AOI about how oppression and emancipation have played out over a 150-year period in South African popular music. For enquiries, contact Stephanie Vos at svos@sun.ac.za.
• The Hidden Years Vinyl Session will take place on 5 September at 18:00 at the GUS Gallery. Ntone Njabe and Michael Shakib Bhatch will play records from the Hidden Years collection housed at the AOI. Entrance is free.
