Buskaid

Buskaid is a thriving Academy of String Teaching and Performance, situated in the heart of the South African Township of Soweto. Its primary mission is to give opportunities to impoverished and previously disadvantaged township children to learn classical (bowed) string instruments to the highest international standards. Buskaid also runs a highly successful string teacher-training programme, and nine of its eleven teachers are drawn from within its student membership. Its flagship Ensemble, which has gained international recognition, was voted one of the world’s most inspirational orchestras by the UK’s Gramophone magazine in 2008. Through its teaching and performance activities, Buskaid is able to offer employment opportunities in an environment where currently 75% of the 26% of unemployed South Africans are young, black, and living at subsistence levels. Buskaid’s presence in Soweto is a powerful tool for transformation in the local and wider township community.

Buskaid was founded in 1992 by British viola player Rosemary Nalden, in response to a BBC radio interview highlighting the difficulties of a group of young string players in Diepkloof, Soweto. Rosemary responded by organising a fundraising event, when 120 professional musicians ‘busked’ simultaneously in 16 British Rail stations across the UK.

In January 1997 when the original project had fallen into difficulties, Rosemary established the Buskaid Soweto String Project. Initially the fledgling music school, situated in a tiny run-down church office in Diepkloof, consisted of fifteen members from the original project and a handful of new beginners. Since then, in response to the huge demand by local children to learn a stringed instrument, it has grown exponentially, and currently comprises approximately 115 students ranging in age from five to thirty-five, all of whom are drawn from the less privileged local community. The Buskaid Soweto Academy of String Teaching and Performance is now situated in its own purpose-built school in the grounds of another church in Diepkloof. In the 20 years of its existence the organisation has grown from a modest social development project into an internationally recognised institution of high quality string teaching and performance.