Ep. 128-Divine principles-my conversation with Xhosa Cole

Critically acclaimed saxophonist, flautist and composer, Xhosa Cole is an embodiment of the success of numerous community outreach arts programmes in Birmingham, UK. Holding his spirituality at the center of his creative practice, Cole has been forging a career across communities in the UK and beyond. Having developed his unique mixed-heritage, black British queer voice in the Jazz tradition, Xhosa’s musical roots are in collaboration and improvisation. This alchemic mix has opened the doors to work alongside a diverse and expansive pool of creative forces from different traditions, cultures, backgrounds and practices.

The output of Cole’s artistic practice manifests through performance, composition and teaching; all informing and reinforcing each other. With a musical language that is informed by and spans across cultures and modalities, Xhosa is a sought after composer in the contemporary classical and improvising industries in the UK. Having been commissioned by the BBC, Symphony Hall, Ideas of Noise Festival and Flatpack Film Festival and Aldeburg Festival Cole is building his own methodology for composition that puts islamic geometry, natural structures/processes, West African rhythms and non-hierarchical orchestration and performance at its center. This unique combination is the foundation of highly invigorating music that has the stability of sacred music structures found in Wester- Harmony and free combustion of Black improvising traditions. Cole’s teachers include John O’gallager, Hans Koller and Pat Thomas, who supported in building an understanding of Western Classical composition from the foundations of Schoenberg’s ‘Fundamentals of Musical Composition’ through to the modalities of Messiaen, Bartok and Thelonious Monk.