A charming new exhibition on the theme of indigenous music, entitled ‘Voices of the Ancestors’ opens at Iziko South African National Gallery on 24 September and runs until 15 March 2009.

Music is common to all humans, like the rhythm of our heartbeat or breathing. To create music, ingenious sounding forms are produced, aesthetically pleasing both to the ear and the eye.

Iziko has a superb collection of musical instruments from Southern, Eastern and Central Africa that are presented here as sculptures. However, it is through an appreciation of the music, performance contexts and the instrument itself that we can begin to grasp what an instrument means to the people who made and played it.

Over one hundred works have been selected from Iziko collections to suggest the rich diversity of musical instruments created by African people for their own use. Exhibited for the first time, seventeen different types of instruments are drawn from four classic categories - idiophones (self-sounding instruments), chordophones (stringed instruments), aerophones (wind instruments) and membranophones (drums).

The title of the exhibition, Voices of the Ancestors refers to the belief that in certain contexts, the spiritual world can be accessed through music.

Visitors can engage in the audible dimensions of African sounds in the Chill Room where interactive programmes and listening equipment awaits. Exciting education and public programmes and a special celebration on Heritage Day are planned.

For further information contact educator Kathy Coates at Iziko 021 467 4661 kcoates@iziko.org.za or the curator, Carol Kaufmann 021 467 4672 ckaufmann@iziko.org.za.

Image captions (in order of appearance):

• Signalling horns and trumpets from the Democratic Republic of Congo, collected in the 1940s. The central one is made of ivory.
• Decorated drum made by the Luba people of the Kasai region of the DRC, collected in the 1940s.
• Central African drum with elaborately carved decoration.

Also available but not shown here:

• Drum made by the Ila people of Zambia, collected in 1912.
• Ivory and reptile skin harp from the DRC, collected in the 1930s.

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