Michael Mosoeu Moerane

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Michael Mosoeu Moerane (1904 - 1980) was born in Mongoloaneng in the Eastern Cape close to the Lesotho border. He was a composer, pianist, teacher and conductor. Michael was considered one of the most important composers in Southern Africa, writing in tonic solfa and staff notation and using predominantly vernacular lyrics.

His siblings included journalist and activist Manasseh Moerane and Epainette Mbeki. Education played a key role in the family background as did a cultural heritage forged on both sides of the Lesotho-South Africa border.

This heritage, together with a Western education and musical training, moulded Moerane’s compositional style through the course of 51 extant works (and about 20 lost works) written between the 1920s and 1970s. His reputation rests on a handful of works, but through this research project, newly discovered works will be published alongside known ones, for the first time, to create a unique repertoire that can finally receive due critical attention.

(* The above excerpt and more information is available from https://aoinstitute.ac.za/moerane/ *).