Leading the Way, One Note at a Time: Composer Clare Loveday at 50

Abstract

South African composer Clare Loveday has played a vital role in South African musical life for most of her 50 years (Loveday celebrated her birthday on 22 March). Her involvement with South African music spans the fields of academia (she is a former lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand), research (apart from academic publications she also served as coordinator for the NRF’s Travelling Institute for Music Research), teaching (privately and as Research Fellow at UKZN, NWU and Rhodes University) and most importantly, composition. As a longtime collaborator of Loveday’s – I frequently perform her compositions, and in 2014 we collaborated for performances at the Infecting the City festival in Cape Town – I appreciated the opportunity to engage her in a discussion on creativity, collaboration, teaching, and the challenges of being a professional composer in South Africa today. This interview was conducted on 26 July 2017.