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06 November 2020 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Supplied
Dr Tronél Hellberg, UFS alumna, completed her PhD in Music from the OSM in 2018.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown has posed many challenges. Not only has it distrupted our normal way of life it but has created a ‘new normal.’ Even in these trying times, alumni from the University of the Free State (UFS) have adjusted to the new normal by going above and beyond to make it as normal as possible. 

One of these is Dr Tronél Hellberg, an alumna from the Odeion School of Music at the UFS, who has supported Grade 12 learners by presenting free online prescribed music theory classes. The classes are beneficial for learners following the CAPS or IEB curriculum. “I trust the online videos will assist learners and teachers to get through this challenging Grade 12 year,” says Dr Hellberg. She has recorded more than 38 live videos on her G-Sential Theory of Music Facebook page

The recordings are accessible to Grade 12 learners and their teachers at no cost. Dr Hellberg established the G-Sential Theory of Music in 2007 and has since published 20 theory of music books. 
 
Apart from assisting in teaching, one of her main objectives is to reach less fortunate learners who do not have access to music teachers. “Grade 12 music literacy requires an accumulative understanding of theory of music,” she says. With her initiative she also aims to “fill any gaps” to solidify knowledge and information which might still be unclear.

News Archive

Emmy Award nominee to disrupt the silence in second Vice-Chancellor’s lecture
2015-04-24

Philip Miller

The second instalment of the Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture Series is about to take place on the Bloemfontein Campus. The lecture series – launched in March 2015 by Constitutional Court Judge Albie Sachs – forms part of a five-year research project led by Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela and funded by the Mellon Foundation.

Disrupting the Silence: The Past and Transnational Memory

Internationally-acclaimed composer and sound artist, Philip Miller, will deliver the next lecture in this series on Wednesday 29 April 2015. Miller is currently an honorary fellow at APC (Archive and Public Culture) at the University of Cape Town. His discussion will centre on the topic of ‘Disrupting the Silence: The Past and Transnational Memory’. This will expand on the research project’s overarching theme of Trauma, Memory and Representations of the Past.

The details of the event are:
Date: 29 April 2015
Time: 12:30
Venue: Albert Wessels Auditorium, Bloemfontein Campus
RSVP: Jo-Anne Naidoo at NaidooJA@ufs.ac.za

Compositions and productions

In one of his compositions, ‘REwind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape and Testimony’ Miller incorporates actual testimonies recorded during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings. Through combining the audio of these testimonies with vocal soloists, chorus, a string octet and powerful projected images, the boundaries between victims, perpetrators and listeners blur.

Miller has been nominated for an Emmy Award in 2013 for his soundtrack to HBO’s film ‘The Girl’. Miller’s other works include the soundtrack for the film ‘Black Butterflies’, which won him best film score at the South African Film and Television Awards in 2012. He also composed the film score for the ‘Bang Bang Club’, which was nominated for a Genie Award in Canada, as well as for Rehad Desai’s Marikana investigation, ‘Miners Shot Down’.

He also has a long-standing collaboration with internationally-renown visual artist William Kentridge. Their most recent collaboration is the five-screen multimedia installation with a moving sculpture and immersive soundscape ‘The Refusal of Time’. His latest work, ‘Extracts from the Underground’, explores the subterranean sound world of miners in South Africa.

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