Sound Out of Soweto

Rosemary Nalden has stopped her ensemble of 20 young South African musicians in the midst of a Scott Joplin tune. They’re in rehearsal at the Santa Monica Presbyterian Church. “It’s not in tune still,” she says to them. “Wake up, all of you--you’re so dozy today.”

The group is jet-lagged--just off the plane from Soweto, the South African township known more for its 1976 anti-apartheid student uprising than for high culture. Many of the musicians had never picked up an instrument before Nalden, a British violist, left London and made them the focal point of her life.

The Buskaid Soweto String Project, which has played to packed houses in Ireland, London and Paris, will make its U.S. debut at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Monday before heading east for a brief New York engagement. It is also giving a free concert at the West Angeles Church of God in Christ at 10 a.m. today. Since they arrived, they’ve already entertained passersby on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, visited the set of “The X-Files” and played volleyball on the beach.

The Royce evening, hosted by the Los Angeles-based Artists for a New South Africa, will serve up bluegrass and ragtime, in addition to Irish jigs, Gypsy music and kwela, politically tinged African township melodies. A major part of the program, however, is classical fare. That shatters stereotypes and engenders controversy, Nalden notes.

“There are ongoing charges of Eurocentrism,” said Nalden, 57. “Are people saying that blacks shouldn’t play classical? If that’s the case, maybe they shouldn’t play cricket, talk on cell phones or wear suits. We have an orchestra like none other--one that plays European music the African way--full-blooded, committed. I train them in a refined, detailed manner--and then I let them loose.”

Reviews have been consistently glowing. After a 2000 program of Elgar, Albinoni and Corelli, The Star, a Johannesburg newspaper, praised the group’s “exultation, finesse and musical acumen”--calling it “a ray of hope in an often barren or at least predictable musical landscape.”

Sixty students are enrolled in the 3-year-old project--and more than 1,000 are on the waiting list. Admissions are made on a subjective basis--not by audition, but by gut. Nalden holds classes in a 2-year-old facility built at a cost of about $62,000 and has set up a summer camp in the bush. The children take lessons after school and rehearse on weekends, paying a nominal fee of 20 rand ($2.50) a month. “Something for nothing,” Nalden says, “is not a good idea.”

‘Pioneering’ Spirit Was Passed Down

“Buskaid gives teenagers involved in crime and drugs something better to do--and kids coming up a sense of possibility,” said cellist Gilbert Tsoke, 18. “Somehow Rosemary tolerates us--even after the hormones kick in.”

Nalden grew up in a musical family. Her father, an orphan, obtained two doctorates in music from English universities via correspondence courses. Because he hadn’t set foot in a classroom, she says, he couldn’t land an academic post in Britain. When Rosemary was 4, the family moved to New Zealand, where her father established the country’s first music conservatory.

“The pioneering thing, the madness, has been inherited,” she said.

At 24, Nalden headed for London to study at the Royal College of Music. After graduation, she made a comfortable living playing with such early music ensembles as John Eliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists and Roger Norrington’s now-defunct London Classical Players. In 1991, she heard a radio interview about a struggling music program in Soweto and began to rethink her life.

“I was on the right side of 50--but just barely,” she said. “I’d had a lot of men, spent holidays in Greece--had been thinking only about me. I needed something to sink my teeth into--and I got them into something pretty tough.”

In 1992, Nalden and some of her friends performed in train stations, raising more than $8,000 for the program. During the next few years, they repeated the gesture--funneling the proceeds into Buskaid, a charity Nalden set up. The name is derived from the British term “busking”: to entertain on the streets in exchange for tips.

Nalden’s 1992 trip to South Africa provided a dose of reality. Classes were held in a what she calls a “filthy hole.” And, by 1995, she says, she realized that a chunk of charitable money was missing. Two years later, Nalden cut her ties with that group, starting her own Buskaid Soweto String Project.

Though a few students stole from Nalden at first, tough love turned things around. Tardiness isn’t tolerated, chatting is discouraged, and the youngsters are expected to rehearse for hours at a stretch. Over the years, only two students have been expelled--her personal failures, Nalden says. She is also faced with the country’s AIDS crisis--25% of her students will be HIV-positive in the next five years, she says. At times, it’s overwhelming, Nalden concedes--and there’s no one to whom she can pass the baton.

“Training a new generation of teachers is crucial,” she said. “With the shortage of violin instructors and the South African brain drain, finding a successor is difficult.”

The ensemble has recorded two CDs and played with the Tokyo String Quartet during a South African tour. It also performed for Queen Elizabeth II and for former President Nelson Mandela. Nalden, a foreigner, was named 1999 Woman of the Year, arts and culture division, by the South African Broadcasting Commission.

The most meaningful accolades however, come from the students.

“Rosemary is an angel, a mother who guides us,” said violinist Mpumelelo Buthelezi, 18. “Before she came along, I was idling on the streets, getting into mischief. Buskaid has developed my mind, given me a sense of purpose and confidence. Opportunity comes along only once--and I feel a responsibility to take it.”

Fund-raising is always at the forefront of Nalden’s mind. South African corporations help cover the group’s frugal annual budget of about $60,000 a year, but not the cost of touring. Most of the $100,000 Los Angeles trip has been underwritten by “The X-Files” star Gillian Anderson, who called South Africa after hearing Nalden on National Public Radio last year.

“Buskaid shows something can be created from nothing,” Anderson said. “Disadvantaged kids can break out of their boundaries. That’s an important message for Los Angeles, seemingly the land of opportunity, where the arts have been sucked out of the system.”

Eventually, Nalden hopes to clone her Buskaid operation in other townships--opening it up to the growing black middle class. Long term, she’d like to create a professional orchestra composed of Buskaid graduates and establish an endowment.

Violinist Gift Moloisane, 21, has dreams of his own. He’d like to study Baroque music in England before starting his own ensemble in Soweto.

“Music speaks all languages,” he said. “It has broken down barriers with the white community--as well as in Soweto. Friends who thought I was strange for picking up the violin are now on the [Buskaid] waiting list.”

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* Buskaid Soweto String Project, today, West Angeles Church of God in Christ, 3045 Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles, at 10 a.m., free, and, Monday, Royce Hall at 8 p.m. with an appearance by Los Angeles youth orchestra Sweet Strings. Tickets: $15-$70. Reservations: (310) 825-2101.