Spotlight: Abel Selaocoe

For once, believe the hype. Abel Selaocoe – a once in a generation, one of a kind musician – really is all that is claimed for him.

Even the most silver-tongued attempts to describe his astonishing artistry on the cello, his remarkable vocal skills, his imaginative blending of Western classical music with improvisatory jazz and his African heritage, or the emotional impact of his own richly crafted music, fall short of capturing the sheer thrill and exhilaration of seeing and hearing Abel Selaocoe in concert.

There is something of the seanachaí about his ability to transform a conventional concert into an unforgettable experience. Putting classical cello technique to expressive ends and glossing it with an emotive vocal style borrowing from Xhosa-inspired clicks and ‘throat singing’, Selaocoe is a musical chameleon.

He is also a born communicator. British newspaper The Times commented on one performance: ‘Abel Selaocoe is billed as a cellist and composer, but that doesn’t begin to cover his talents… [he] also sings, improvises, dances and directs, seemingly sculpting sound with his hands…. Yet Selaocoe’s greatest gift is his irresistible energy, sweeping the audience up into the music in an entirely wholehearted way’.

Born in the South African township of Sebokeng, it was Selaocoe’s early cello lessons with the pioneering Michael Masote in Johannesburg that helped inspire and shape a young, imaginative mind.

After further studies at Manchester’s Royal Northern College of Music, he quickly made his mark as a soloist, composer and collaborator with the likes of the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Singers, Manchester Collective, the Minnesota-based Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (where he is an Artistic Partner), and his own Chesaba Trio and Bantu Ensemble.

His wide-ranging musical interests have led to memorable partnerships with fellow classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma, jazz pianist Gwilym Simcock, kora virtuoso Seckou Keita and others. His three albums to date serve as impressionable calling cards for a singular talent.

His concerts invariably bring together musicians from different genres for continents-spanning collaborations. This season he partners with the ‘top class’ (Arts Review) Irish Chamber Orchestra with its reputation for adventurous programming. And with two stunning soloists who share Selaocoe’s melting-pot approach to making music: bass player, Irishman Alan Keary, and Austrian percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger, ‘one of the most technically gifted and tasteful players we have seen in a long time’ (Drummer Magazine).

Selaocoe himself is a robust, expressive performer, exuding warmth and the wisdom of ages, frequently interlaced with his own emotive vocals, switching fluidly between several languages.

Alongside evocative Janáček, passionate Debussy, and tender Sibelius will be heard Selaocoe’s own uniquely vibrant music celebrating his African roots, love, and heroism in a fusion of classical forms and techniques laced with township rhythms, ancestral anthems, jazz inflections and voices. A highlight will be his ‘powerful, inventive and irresistibly enjoyable’ (BBC Music Magazine) Hymns of Bantu: Kea Morata, a thrilling standout track from his unique and spellbinding debut album.

Of himself, Selaocoe simply says: ‘I’m an African person with African ideals, but those ideals are connected to the universalities of the world’.