Page 88 - FINAL_RPS Awards 2021 Coverage Book_Full (2)

‘It all began with my brother, who was playing music way before I really got interested,’ Selaocoe
says. ‘He would bring together people from the church, the brass band, whatever, and write music
for them.’ Selaocoe followed his brother to a music school in Soweto, run by the African Cultural
Organisation of South Africa (Acosa). ‘It was an outreach project that got us out of the township for
the weekend. The teachers were amazing; they had so much knowledge to share, but didn’t really
have any resources.’ Like his brother, a bassoonist, Selaocoe started out on the recorder. His
musical talent was obvious, and when he was eleven, the school suggested he take up the cello. ‘I
started going to a class on Saturday where we would all share one or two cellos. I was already
obsessed, learning anything I could that had a bass clef.’ Next came a cello of his own, though not
without a new sense of responsibility. ‘No one else in the class was given that opportunity, so it
was on me to make use of it – not to go out and play with my friends, but to practise the cello.

‘Through music we began to meet people whose lives were very different from ours, and it dawned
on us that this was our way into another world. From then on it was a case of making the best for
ourselves.’ Back in Sebokeng, Selaocoe’s abilities did not go unnoticed, even if his instrument
remained something of a mystery. ‘In the township, whatever the occasion was, I’d be there playing
the cello. People didn’t think of me as a classical cellist, or even as a cellist at all. I was just the kid
who could play that thing. They’d bring me along and I’d have to make something work. It’s just a
box, after all. We didn’t grow up with classical music, so playing the cello was just another way of
joining in with the culture we did have.’

Despite the blurred musical boundaries of his early years, was Selaocoe ever tempted to become a
mainstream classical cellist? ‘Absolutely!’ he says. ‘One hundred per cent!’ In 2010, Selaocoe won
another scholarship, this time to the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester,
where the high standard of playing encouraged him to push his technical and interpretative
abilities. But, he says, there was always another side to his music making. ‘When I arrived in
Manchester, I was pretty sure my path was going to be that of a typical concert cellist, but as time
went on my deep ancestral memory of other musics just wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t leave it
behind.’ Selaocoe’s teacher in Manchester was Hannah Roberts, a former student of William Pleeth
and Ralph Kirshbaum who encouraged him to follow his own path. ‘I was so lucky to have her,’
Selaocoe says. ‘She gave me a rigorous technical training and I studied all the usual classical
repertoire with her, but she also told me to find my essence.’

At the RNCM, Selaocoe continued to explore folk music and other non-classical styles of string
playing. ‘You have to follow what it is you really want to do,’ he says. ‘You might not be the new
Rostropovich, but you’re becoming an elevated version of yourself, which is quite enough for the
world to digest.’ His trio, Chesaba, which has performed at the Womad festival (World of Music,
Arts and Dance), the Amsterdam Cello Biennale and with the BBC Concert Orchestra, started life
during Selaocoe’s time at college, as did Manchester Collective, another group with a clear
commitment to the unexpected possibilities of sound. Indeed, Manchester, where Selaocoe still
lives, has remained at the heart of his creative life. ‘The scene here feels united, and the city’s small
enough that it feels easy to conjure up a sense of community, which is one of the reasons I’ve
stayed,’ he explains. An original work commissioned by Manchester Collective and the Southbank
Centre, in partnership with the Royal Philharmonic Society, will be premiered as part of his new
show The Oracle in March and April, following the success ofSirocco, another of his boundary-free
concoctions which the group premiered in 2018.

The pandemic may have put paid to Chesaba’s plans for a tour of South Africa, but Selaocoe is
adamant the group will perform there before long: ‘Chesaba owes its spirit to South Africa. The
idea of playing all these different things at once comes from the country’s blend of cultures. Taking
classical music into some of those spaces would be very foreign, but I think it would be a revelation
for us all. I want to show that the language is still the same, that Bach, Rameau and traditional
African music aren’t really that different.’ But as the Proms concert made clear, Selaocoe’s interests
in African music know no borders. ‘I would also love to travel to East Africa to learn their music