""This is one of the best books to have emerged from South African musicology in the last decadeIt opens up a new level of discourse about music during the apartheid era: a level on which the theoretical, the ethical, the historical and the aesthetic play against each other in newly meaningful ways.""
--Roger Parker, Cambridge University (UK)

""Composing Apartheid endeavors to trace the relationships between names, concepts and realities as they variously interacted, and continue to interact, on the musical landscape, and it does so as historically and socially responsible scholarship.""
--Grant Olwage, from the Introduction

"Composing Apartheid" is the first book ever to chart the musical world of a notorious period in world history, apartheid South Africa. It explores how music was produced through, and was productive of, key features of apartheid's social and political topography. The collection of essays is intentionally broad, and, the contributors include historians, sociologists, and anthropologists, as well as ethnomusicologists, music theorists, and historical musicologists.

The essays focus on a variety of music (jazz, music in the Western art tradition, popular music), major composers (such as Kevin Volans) and works (Handel's "Messiah"). Musical institutions and previously little-researched performers (such as the African National Congress's troupe-in-exile Amandla) are explored. The writers move well beyond their subject matter, intervening in debates on race, historiography, and postcolonial epistemologies and pedagogies.

This book includes contributions by Lara Allen, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Gary Baines, Rhodes University (South Africa); Ingrid Byerly, Duke University; Christopher Cockburn, University of KwaZulu-Natal; David Coplan, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (South Africa); Michael Drewett, Rhodes University; Shirli Gilbert, University of Southampton; Bennetta Jules-Rosette, University of California, San Diego; Christine Lucia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg; Carol A. Muller, University of Pennsylvania; Stephanus Muller, University of Stellenbosch (South Africa); Brett Pyper, New York University; and Martin Scherzinger, Princeton University.

"Grant Olwage" is a senior lecturer at the School of Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Proxmire and the Exodus of Prairieville is a story told through the eyes of prairie dogs. Taking on human characteristics, these remarkable creatures are forced from their home on the Kansas prairie. Under the leadership of one called by the Great Creator, Proxmire is told to prepare to lead his doomed village to a Promised Land of peace and safety. Feeling inability in his leadership qualities, he is sent an atypical sidekick, a rabbit known as Potrella. As the group crosses into the Sandhills of Nebraska, there are moments of concern not unlike the Jewish people experienced upon entering their desert under the leadership of Moses. Emotions of mystery, terror, heartbreak, anxiety, and physical pain are balanced with those of joy, happiness, trust, and a growing respect for each other. Having taught at the fifth grade level for many years, I always felt an awareness of the need for literature which would stimulate the young reader into thinking about the importance of placing faith in a Higher Being, as well as raising thought to one's responsibility to live a life of morality and serving others. Prairie dogs seemed to be the perfect animals to form my story around since they are in actuality high on the list of helpless creatures facing extinction. Therefore my purpose is twofold - - bringing to surface their present day plight as well as fulfilling my other intentions. It is my sincere hope that young and old alike will find a blessing in the reading of this story: that it may fill hearts with hope and souls with contentment, both of which I have personally found in serving the One they call The Great Creator.