masakane – let us build together (revsd. with new text-vocal score))

The FIFA World Cup was due to take place in South Africa in 2010, and Surendran Reddy, together with his former agent, Rudy Mato da Nata, made plans to re-work Reddy’s cantata masakane (1996) in order to submit it for consideration as one of the musical items to be performed at the opening ceremony of the games. It had been composed in 1996 as part of a  ‘Human Rights Oratorio’ that was supposed to be have been performed at the Olympic Games in Atlanta. (Financial problems prevented this from happening.) Reddy re-wrote the text of masakane in 2021, praising the integrative and uniting power of sport – and the World Cup and FIFA – and finishing the score at the end of September 2009. He died on 22 January 2010, without knowing the outcome of his submission. South Africa didn’t open the games with any South African music, but chose the columbian singer Chakira singing Waka Waka, and the American group, Black Eyed Peas.

In 1996, the work was scored for full orchestra, Baritone soloist and SATB choir. In 2001, Reddy typeset his original vocal score with the same forces as a vocal score with piano accompaniment. No orchestral version of the revised 2009 masakane was ever made. The revised 2009 vocal score for Baritone soloist, SATB choir and piano, is published here for the first time, using the final Sibelius file that Reddy wrote on 22 September 2009. Reddy entitled it simply, Masakane. The two mp3s made by Reddy in September 2009 from enhanced Sibelius files (shown below) are freely downloadable.