Musicians like Abel Selaocoe are broadening classical music to reflect our evolving stories

Australia Broadcast Center

4 days ago

As a tradition spanning centuries, classical music has a rich history of composers, performers and music-lovers.
But for most of us, classical music is typified by a small group of European male composers from the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven.
"Classical music is not immune to politics, prejudices and world forces that have affected all kinds of art forms," says Jessica Cottis, the Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra.
One of Cottis's main tasks is selecting music the orchestra rehearses and performs. This includes concert staples by beloved composers as well as newly commissioned music that reflects our ever-changing stories.
And the audience, she says, are very excited to go on the journey with her.
Cottis and other musicians discuss how classical music is a living, breathing art form.
Australia's state symphony orchestras and institutions have a decades-long history of supporting Australian music. However, this support wasn't always as available for musicians from diverse and marginalised backgrounds, or who deviated from the sounds of the classical 'canon.'
In the ABC's early years, trailblazing composer Margaret Sutherland frequently criticised the broadcaster for inopportune placement of Australian music.
During the first live televised concert by the ABC in 1957, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra had only a handful of women in its ranks.
There has been progress, albeit slow.
Noongar man Aaron Wyatt became the first Indigenous person to conduct an Australian state orchestra as recently as 2022.
In recent years, the sustained efforts of advocates in broadening music selection in Australia has accelerated, Cottis says.
"We're now much more in a place where audiences can see [beloved classics] like Mahler alongside Australian composers and no one will blink twice," she says.
This shift in attitude has opened up classical music's wealth of creative voices.
"Australians have a very strong acoustic identity with land and landscape through our Indigenous connection," Cottis says.
She relishes the challenge of presenting Australia's multiple histories and lifting up diverse sets of voices.
"As a conductor and a programmer, it's fascinating to find ways to create programs that tell stories through music, whether that was written 100 years ago, 200 years ago or in 2025," Cottis says.
When cellist Abel Selaocoe visited Australia in April, he proved how classical music can co-exist with African musical traditions.
Selaocoe, who grew up in South Africa's Johannesburg, incorporates throat-singing and percussion as part of his performances.
During his Australian debut with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Selaocoe asked orchestral members to learn each other's languages through singing and improvising with their voices.
"The different thing that binds cultures together is the idea of the voice," he says.
During his visit to ABC Classic's studios, Selaocoe demonstrated how he combines the Western classical music and African influences which are equally important to his identity.
Music hasn't always simply been for pleasure for Selaocoe, who grew up in post-apartheid South Africa as a black person.
"This is our survival tactic," he says. "I think living in the township [around Johannesburg], you are very aware that other children who maybe live in the suburbs or live in better conditions, have opportunities."
Selaocoe's love for music took him to the African Cultural Organisation of South Africa, an outreach program for young South Africans in Soweto.
Later, he pursued his studies to Manchester in England, where Selaocoe refined his unique musical style.
Selaocoe's international collaborators include the London Symphony Orchestra and Chineke! Orchestra, an ensemble focused on diversity and inclusion in classical music.
Melbourne-based guzheng virtuoso Mindy Meng Wang has been gracing Australian stages for a decade.
The instrument has a venerable musical tradition going back 2,500 years. In Meng Wang's hands, the guzheng becomes a bridge between Chinese and Western classical music traditions.
Meng Wang's practice includes experimenting with expanding the guzheng's musical capabilities, such as finding different tuning systems and working with composers on new repertoire.
"The guzheng is traditionally tuned to a pentatonic scale, which makes a unique and singular sound world," Meng Wang explains. "For me, working with Western music is like learning to speak a different language on the same instrument."
Meng Wang recently premiered the Concerto for Guzheng and Orchestra by Australian composer Jessica Wells, marking the first concerto for the instrument written outside China.
The concerto was part of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's Metropolis Festival, designed to showcase music by Australian composers.
Meng Wang describes the process of working with Wells as very collaborative, from finding children's tales which underpin the concerto to workshopping Meng Wang's role in the orchestra.
"I played the role of a demon, which then transformed into a beautiful ghost girl," Meng Wang says. "In the concerto, I played two differently tuned guzheng, which represent the shifting of the story and my visual and musical transformations."
Meng Wang's growing list of collaborators includes pianist Paul Grabowsky, composer and soprano Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, the Australian Art Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
She says her favourite aspect of collaboration is leveraging music's power to create "a space where we can share stories without language."
Stream the Australian Chamber Orchestra's concert with cellist Abel Selaocoe on Front Row with Megan Burslem on ABC iview.