the friendly dragon

This children’s musical theatre work was first performed as Dragon’s Breath Adventure in July 1994, at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. Reddy wrote both the music and the libretto, based on a book by Sandy Rudd, and the work was premiered at the Festival by the UNAM Players, comprising students and staff from the University of Namibia, Windhoek. The music, which comprises 14 numbers depicting different events in the story, draws on several African traditional sources and especially Zimbabwean mbira music and Ugandan xylophone music. There is no score, and therefore nothing to purchase, since Reddy composed the music directly on his Yamaha QX3 sequencer (although there is also a flute part), but midi recordings are available below as is the programme for the 1994 presentation. The first page of the libretto with annotations by Reddy can be seen on the right. A live recording and a midi recording with flute are in the Surendran Reddy Archive at Stellenbosch University.

This children’s musical theatre work in 14 sections was first performed as Dragon’s Breath Adventure in 1994, at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa. It is based on a book by Sandy Rudd with lyrics and music by Reddy, and was premiered at the Festival by the UNAM Players, comprising students and staff from the University of Namibia, Windhoek. Reddy was a lecturer in music there between 1992 and 1994 and also taught at the Windhoek Conservatoire. There is no score since Reddy composed the music directly on his Yamaha QX3 sequencer, but there is a libretto of Dragon’s Breath Adventure showing Reddy’s annotations (the first page of which is shown on the right and which is a free download here). The programme for the first performance and MIDI recordings of all 14 sections are given below. The music draws freely on nyamaropa, a well-known mbira tune from Zimbabwe, Reddy’s country of birth, as transcribed by the great expert on Zimbabwean music, ethnomusicologist Andrew Tracey. It also draws on a genre of popular South African music called mbaqanga.