CAPE TOWN HARMONIES, Memory, Humour and Resilience (Somerset West [Afrique du Sud], African Minds, 2017), ouvrage co-écrit par Armelle Gaulier et Denis-Constant Martin vient d’être publié . Il analyse deux répertoires de chant choral interprétés par des chœurs du Cap et montre comment l’examen de l’origine, de l’organisation, de l’interprétation de ces chants et des débats qu’elle suscite, permet de comprendre plus finement les hésitations et les ambivalences qui existent à propos de leur « identité » parmi ceux qui étaient classés coloureds (« métis ») durant l’apartheid, et les incidences que cela peut avoir pour le vivre ensemble dans la cité sud-africaine. Cape Town Harmonies propose un exemple de croisement d’analyses ethnomusicologiques et sociopolitiques qui ambitionne de montrer la fertilité de cette combinaison. L’ouvrage est publié sous une licence internationale « Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 », sa version papier doit être achetée mais il est aussi disponible gratuitement en ligne (voir: http://www.africanminds.co.za/dd-product/cape-town-harmonies-memory-humour-resilience/).
Quatrième de couverture (extraits de la préface):
« Cape Town’s public cultures can only be fully appreciated through recognition of its deep and diverse soundscape. We have to listen to what has made and makes a city. The ear is an integral part of the ‘research tools’ one needs to get a sense of any city. We have to listen to the sounds that made and make the expansive ‘mother city’. Various of its constituent parts sound different from each other … [T]here is the sound of the singing men and their choirs (“teams” they are called) in preparation for the longstanding annual Malay choral competitions. The lyrics from the various repertoires they perform are hardly ever written down […] There are texts of the hallowed ‘Dutch songs’ but these do not circulate easily and widely. Researchers dream of finding lyrics from decades ago, not to mention a few generations ago – back to the early 19th century. This work by Denis Constant Martin and Armelle Gaulier provides us with a very useful selection of these songs. More than that, it is a critical sociological reflection of the place of these songs and their performers in the context that have given rise to them and sustains their relevance. It is a necessary work and is a very important scholarly intervention about a rather neglected aspect of the history and present production of music in the city.”
Shamil Jeppie, Associate Professor in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Cape Town.