US orchestra plays in South Africa as Trump attacks its president

Joseph Horowitz reports:

At the precise moment that US President Donald Trump was accusing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa of denying acts of racial persecution, the University of Michigan Orchestra began a five-concert tour of South Africa with a smashing two and half hour program at the University of Pretoria. 

The concert’s peak impact occurred near the close, when the 100 musicians abandoned their instruments and stood to sing the beloved Xhosa song “Bawo Thixo Somandla.” Halfway through, they began to sway and gesture. They ambushed the sold-out audience into a condition of incredulous delight…

The University of Michigan orchestra next proceeds to Soweto and Cape Town — in counterpoint with exacerbated relations between the US and South Africa…

Read on here.

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