‘Art is For Us, and Beyond Us’: In Conversation with Cellist Abel Selaocoe
‘My parents are big believers in appeasing our ancestors. The music that comes with that is very traditional,’ shares Abel Selaocoe, the award-winning South African cellist. His latest album, Hymns of Bantu, is being toured internationally, with stops at coveted events like Glastonbury.
Selaocoe’s 2022 debut, Where Is Home (Hae ke Kae), showcased a mature sound that placed his African heritage on the pedestal of Baroque tradition. His virtuoso cello-work is enriched by vocal improvisations, throat singing, percussive playing and a showmanship that’s both intimate and deeply inviting.
Perhaps Selaocoe’s extraordinary life has something to do with his extraordinary sound.
If you thought classical music is a story with a full stop, or that fusion is a pretentious affectation, wait till you hear Hymns of Bantu. The opening bars of Tsohle Tsohle (translating as Everything, Everything) are as delicate as a butterfly palpitating dew from its wings. An improvisation inspired by 17th-century French composer Marais is overlaid with haunting Bantu melodies. Selaocoe’s blending of African and Western influences reaches its zenith in this album, which he describes as an ode to the truth that we’re ‘somehow all connected’.
Perhaps Selaocoe’s extraordinary life has something to do with his extraordinary sound. Born in the township of Sebokeng as the apartheid system was crumbling, Selaocoe credits his older brother Sammy for guiding him to classical music. ‘There was this outreach programme, it was a way to keep the kids from the ghetto busy. My brother said, “this is where we should spend our time.” I just went along with it.’
He’s full of praise for how the African Cultural Organisation of South Africa (ACOSA) provided disadvantaged children with orchestral and choral training. ‘They just decided art is for everyone,’ Selaocoe enthuses. ‘That’s a big deal for a race that’s been oppressed for such a long time – to be able to say we can participate in everything the human race has to offer. There were so many incredible opera singers, ballet dancers, fine artists… they had the wildest talent. And the wonderful thing was our Africanness was not lost.’
Before getting a cello, Selaocoe drew the strings on paper and imagined what it would be like to play. He laughs remembering his brother, who played the bassoon, getting stopped by curious townsfolk asking about the unusual instrument. But from his earliest years he was translating African music to the cello while learning the classics, and later scored a scholarship to a prestigious Johannesburg school, then a place at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music.
‘The wonderful thing was our Africanness was not lost.’
Coming to the UK was ‘a beautiful, hard, culture shock … and it was cold!’ Getting used to sitting indoors rather than under a tree changed how he saw the world. ‘It became more about people and understanding their nature, because that’s what you experience inside. Whereas in South Africa, maybe I thought more about the land and those who had gone before us.’
In Manchester, to fulfil the demands for gruelling hours of practice and his need for money, he occasionally resorted to busking. Yet his determination shines through. ‘I didn’t come to sulk’, he says in a documentary clip from the time, chin up in defiance. It’s an ethos that led his tutor to comment, ‘He's competing successfully against cellists five-six years older than him.’
Selaocoe says the UK is ‘the land of search, everybody is looking for themselves’, yet it is abundantly clear that he’s found his place. ‘We are made up of different things,’ he tells me, ‘and whatever combo you are, we don’t call it weird, we just call it your DNA. It’s the influences that make you.’
Composing melodies that bridge international traditions demands that Selaocoe engross himself in both African and Western music. ‘Sometimes I am listening to Mahler, Stravinsky, Bach,’ he shares. ‘I go through phases where Baroque becomes my obsession.’ He’ll complement that with concerts by African artists, hunting for archival sounds of African oral traditions, even listening to recordings of grandmothers talking in kitchens.
Selaocoe says the UK is ‘the land of search, everybody is looking for themselves.’
He might have dinner sitting on the floor in African households, then head to a rehearsal of a Shostakovich quartet. ‘I’ve decided to surround myself, I’m living in both worlds,’ he explains. ‘I connect those experiences throughout my day, and it lets me be happy to let those things live in one space.’
The process is not always smooth, ‘but I come from non-judgement, I let myself get it way, way wrong,’ he laughs. It’s a method that’s guided him to hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide, a solo debut at the BBC Proms, and a contract with Warner Music.
He takes the same relaxed attitudes to how his listeners explore his work: ‘I encourage every person who feeds on art for their wellbeing to think about why their choice is important to them. That’s the best way to enjoy music.’ When I ask him whether he’s fed up with hearing the same autotuned hits everywhere, he shrugs, unfazed. ‘Charts are a box. It’s a standard that’s been set for the world that only captures some of the magic we’re capable of.’
‘We’ve created those environments and said who should play where. The music did not create that.’
The same tranquil self-possession surfaces when I point out how rare it is for a musician to play the breadth of venues Selaocoe does. ‘It’s a huge privilege,’ he says, ‘because maybe some who play the Troxy never set foot in Wigmore Hall, and vice versa. But we’ve created those environments and said who should play where. The music did not create that. I think there’s a point where the music becomes a different entity from us, it has a life of its own and it is allowed to live anywhere it pleases.’
This universality comes through in Hymns of Bantu, whether with the force of a gut punch or a mother’s caress. Uniting each track is an ebb and flow that seems to almost mimic the patterns of nature. ‘You sometimes follow the path of your ancestors even though you may not know it,’ says Selaocoe. ‘That’s how I think, so I understand the music we’re creating we’re not in control of, and once it’s made it takes hold of people and they interpret it in their way. It continues to evolve even after we are gone.’
This wisdom gives me the confidence to confront him with the biggest question: what is art? His reply: ‘It’s literally the description of the cosmos. It is for us, but it is also beyond us. It is in everything.’
Abel Selaocoe performs at Glastonbury Festival on the West Holts stage on Sunday June 29th. For all upcoming tour dates see his website.
All images by Henry J Kamara.