The International Library of African Music Celebrates its 55th Anniversary

The year 2009 marks the 55th anniversary of The International Library of African Music (ILAM). This incredible reservoir of African music was made possible by the dedication of Hugh Tracey (1903-1977). Hugh Tracey, a pioneer in African music research, began studying African music in 1920, when he arrived from England in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to farm tobacco with his older brother.

He learned the Karanga dialect of the Shona language by working with Karanga farm workers in the fields. He soon developed a love for their music and became aware of the resistance of the colonial community, in particular those in education, the church and government, to any suggestion that Africans had any culture or music that was worthwhile. This was the trigger for his life’s work.

The result of his life-long passion is the International Library of African Music, an institution housing the Tracey Family Collection of 350 African instruments, including drums, mbiras, harps and xylophones from throughout sub Saharan Africa, a research institute devoted to the study of music and oral arts in Africa, an Ethnomusicology Programme offering undergraduate and post-graduate degrees through Rhodes University, as well as Africa’s largest digitized archive of African music.

In 1954, Tracey established ILAM in Roodepoort as an independent research centre devoted to the study of African music. That same year he started publishing ILAM’s scholarly journal, African Music, which to this day is the only academic journal devoted to research on African music in the world. The 2009 issue is being released at the celebration being held on 6 November at ILAM (see cover image on homepage – to subscribe go to www.ilam.ru.ac.za)

After his death in 1977, Tracey’s son Andrew Tracey became the director and moved ILAM to Grahamstown in 1978, as an institute attached to Rhodes University. Professor Tracey is widely known for his contributions to education in African music and his tireless enthusiasm for teaching and performing African music. 

Another initiative of Hugh Tracey in 1954 was creation of the African Musical Instrument Company (AMI) to manufacture African and African-derived musical instruments including the original Hugh Tracey Kalimba, which he modelled on the ancient family of the mbira. AMI, also brought to Grahamstown by Andrew Tracey in 1978, now produces a range of African instruments such as the Amadinda (12 note xylophone from Uganda), the Uhadi (amaXhosa bow), various wind instruments and the famous AMI marimbas.

With its 55th anniversary, ILAM is celebrating several of its recent accomplishments – firstly that its audio and photo collections are catalogued and digitized and accessible online via the ILAM website: www.ilam.ru.ac.za , as is ILAM’s recently catalogued book collection. With ILAM’s musical holdings and photo collection catalogued and digitised, the archive and ILAMs complete product inventory, including the CD series produced from its archival recordings are now accessible via the website.

ILAM’s scholarly journal - AFRICAN MUSIC – is back in print for the third consecutive year with the 2009 issue; and the success of the Ethnomusicology Programme established by ILAM’s current Director, Prof. Diane Thram in 1999. An outreach component of ILAM’s work is the creation of a museum exhibit featuring ILAM and Hugh Tracey’s legacy for African music to be mounted at the Wits University’s Origins Centre in 2010. The exhibit is expected to also travel to other parts of the world.

Rhodes University joins ILAM in celebrating its 55th Anniversary in recognition of the fact that, as the largest - and now most accessible - archive of recordings of the music of sub- Saharan Africa on the continent and in the world, ILAM is a treasure of cultural heritage of great significance to the university, to the Eastern Cape, to South Africa and to the world at large.

Sources:
Article by Gillian Rennie, Roots Magazine (2006, Volume 20)
Ilam website