On 16 June 1976, more than 10,000 students from Soweto peacefully protested the apartheid regime. Police opened fire, igniting months of conflict and a turning point in South African history. To mark the 50th anniversary, Wigmore Hall hosted Freedom Songs – a day of concerts culminating in a performance by Leon Bosch and the Ubuntu Ensemble.
Bosch's Personal Connection
Double-bassist Leon Bosch, son of an activist father, was himself arrested in 1976, derailing his law studies and steering him toward music. In a room filled with South Africans onstage and off, the atmosphere was quietly charged with shared stories.
Musical Snapshots Across a Century
The programme spanned nearly a century, from the first generation of art-music composers in the 1940s – still influenced by European sounds – to new voices of the 1960s and today. The melody of Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika ran as a heart-line through many pieces.
Red Ink and Struggle
At the centre was Shane Woodborne's elegiac concerto Red Ink (2019), inspired by Soweto and written for childhood friend Bosch. The double bass, a curious solo instrument, shook the foundations of Ubuntu's string orchestra with its lowering texture. Struggle was embedded in every oversized gesture, lending pathos to lyricism that came at a visible cost – Bosch a lone and increasingly fragile voice of hope.
Climax and Celebration
A sequence by film composer Grant MacLachlan climaxed in the hypnotic waves of Obsidian Skies (2025) – a South African Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis framing a string quartet within the larger orchestra, each striving for a radiant chorale-like theme. After Monthati Masebe's LEFA (2024), a meditation on the inheritance of the post-apartheid generation and unfulfilled promises, the programme launched upward toward Jan-Hendrik Harley's South African Suite (2025). Bosch explained it celebrated "what it means to be South African." Musicians added stamps and claps to syncopated dances, sending the audience out with the joyful arpeggios of Mango Groove's Special Star still rippling through the hall.
