<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\n By Lufuno Masindi and Nthabiseng Khonkco<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Most academics write about their communities. Prof Boudina McConnachie performs with hers, records them, turns their voices into award-winning research, and does it,time and time again.<\/p>\n As head of Rhodes University\u2019s Department of Music and Musicology, and one of the founders of the Makana Community Orchestra, McConnachie stands firm on contributing and performing with the community. Makhanda\u2019s most anticipated musical event of the year, Masicule, <\/em>a <\/em>concert boasting the full MCO and choirs from 20 schools, is proof of this commitment. Held recently at the Monument, both sold-out performances once more set hearts and souls alight.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was magnificent, brilliant. It actually made me cry,\u201d reminisces McConnachie. \u201cThere were students and kids looking at each other going, \u2018wow, you\u2019re amazing\u2019. And that\u2019s so healthy for everybody to realise how accomplished other people can be, despite being from different economic and cultural backgrounds.\u201d<\/p>\n For McConnachie, that moment captures the music ecosystem she has helped to build since 2017, rooted in what communities already have, not what they lack. With Makhanda being such a small town, she has fewer resources to work with – meaning everything she does is for the good of the entire community, including the university. McConnachie describes this as a cycle, where \u201call of the town\u2019s music teachers, music-makers, performers and thinkers are supported so that they then feed back into the university, and we can feed back into them.\u201d<\/p>\n The community at large comes first. \u201cI can promise you, there isn\u2019t one thing we do at the music department where we don\u2019t think about the community,\u201d she says.\u00a0 Not only for the musicians, but also for the culture, music, and the well-being of society in general.\u00a0<\/p>\n Students who come through the Access Music Project, Black Power Station, Graeme College, and Victoria Girls’ High School are increasingly finding their way to Rhodes University, and into the music department itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Without those students, we wouldn’t be what we are right now,” she says. It is, she suggests, the clearest evidence that the relationship between university and community runs in both directions.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Courtesy of Quicket<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n According to McConnachie, they are still applying for Makana Community Orchestra to be registered as an independent entity. When they first started, they held four concerts every year with the full orchestra. But now instead of expecting constant full-scale participation, the orchestra\u00a0 rotates performances across sections. A strings ensemble might perform one week, followed by a brass concert the next, with a full orchestra gathering reserved for later in the year. It\u2019s intentional, explains McConnachie: \u201cThese are community members giving their time. So we\u2019ve had to learn to be flexible, to accept that not every year will look the same in terms of output.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In rehearsal, professional musicians, students and school learners sit side by side, creating what McConnachie describes as a mentorship space for learning to be shared rather than directed. Among them is Temba Mashabane, a member of the Soweto String Quartet, performing alongside students and community members. It is, in her words, a space where musicians \u201clearn with and from each other.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI’m very inspired by how she manages to bring people together and create these wonderful things,\u201d said Garreth Robertson, Deputy Chair of the orchestra. Robertson has worked alongside McConnachie since she started the Orchestra in 2023. Back then, he was still a solo pianist. Gazing at the very first orchestra poster, Robertson says it has been an exciting journey. McConnacie has a \u201clot of vision, and that\u2019s what I respect about her,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n Her ability to put the broader community first \u201cchanged\u201d him and how he views community work, and his heart \u201cskips a beat\u201d when he reflects on her influence on his own leadership role.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Emerging from a growing shift toward transdisciplinary work, Sounds of the Ocean project brought together academia, community knowledge, and artistic practice. Rather than relying solely on written data, it embraced storytelling and sound as legitimate forms of knowledge production.\u00a0<\/p>\n Travelling along the Eastern Cape coastline, the team engaged with a wide range of voices, musicians, healers, researchers, and local community members, to explore the relationship between isiXhosa communities and the ocean. These conversations became a podcast series, capturing layered, lived understandings of the sea.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt showed us that research doesn\u2019t have to look one way,\u201d McConnachie reflects. \u201cDifferent forms of knowledge reach different people.\u201d<\/p>\n The impact extended far beyond academia. The recordings and artistic outputs were later used as evidence in the Shell seismic blasting court case, demonstrating how creative, community-based research can influence legal and environmental discourse.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Johan Pretorius, conductor of the Makana Community Orchestra and music teacher at Graeme College, has worked alongside McConnachie for 14 years. He describes her as a trailblazing \u2018bridge-builder\u2019 whose music books, study guides and reference works have become household titles, found on the shelves of educators and musicians across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n Says Pretorius: \u201cShe has been a pioneer in contexts beyond the norm and has managed to narrow the gap between Western Art Music and African Indigenous Music with musicians all over the world, but specifically in the Eastern Cape and Makana.\u201d Due to its success, other provinces and communities are starting to use her model.\u00a0<\/p>\n Embedding community engagement into university curricula can be a fraught process. For McConnachie, a particular challenge is working within the traditional grading system. About this, she is blunt – \u201cI think marks are unhealthy, making us run after a number instead of quality.\u201d She is a proponent of the \u2018ungrading\u2019 movement and finds it difficult to embed assessment in what she regards as a civic duty.\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, practical solutions have emerged. Music students participating in the orchestra receive ensemble marks through their involvement, aligning academic assessment with community contribution. Similarly, fourth-year music management students are tasked with promoting orchestra performances, gaining hands-on experience in planning, marketing, and execution.<\/p>\n These approaches ensure that community engagement is not an add-on, but integrated into the learning process in ways that feel purposeful and reciprocal.<\/p>\n Not every initiative takes hold in the way it is first imagined.<\/p>\n A recent attempt to establish a choir at George Dickerson Primary School was paused after several months. Logistical challenges, shifting schedules and limited engagement made the model difficult to sustain.<\/p>\n For McConnachie, this is part of the work. \u201cIf something isn\u2019t working, don\u2019t keep pushing at it,\u201d she says. \u201cYou have to change.\u201d<\/p>\n The project is now being rethought in consultation with the school – not abandoned, but adapted.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Working with community members as co-researchers raises complex questions around authorship, intellectual property, and representation. Instead of imposing solutions, the project adopts a collaborative approach from the outset.<\/p>\n In one long-term project, participants co-created a \u201cjoint manifesto\u201d outlining shared values and expectations. Formal agreements offered fair benefit-sharing where necessary, while creative outputs,\u00a0 like a \u201csound postcard\u201d exhibition,\u00a0 provided platforms for all voices to be heard and credited equally.<\/p>\n \u201cThere isn\u2019t one right answer,\u201d McConnachie reflects. \u201cBut you have to try to get it right from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n While the projects aim to serve communities, they are equally shaped by them. Time and again, they find themselves learning from the very people they collaborate with.<\/p>\n \u201cIn music, you realise how much talent and knowledge already exists,\u201d added McConnachie. \u201cSometimes you go out there and think, this person is better than me.\u201d<\/p>\n As Pretorius observes, it is this humanness that sets her apart. “Her relationship with people of all ages and from the entire rich community of Makana and beyond is nothing short of extraordinary.”\u00a0<\/p>\n It is this constant exchange that continues to reshape their understanding of both teaching and research.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.ru.ac.za \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Winner of the Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award, head of Rhodes’ Music Department, Prof Boudina McConnachie, connects university and town musicians, thinkers and performers. Photo by Sanele Ndlovu
Prof Boudina McConnachie is a flautist, podcaster, award-winner, community orchestra conductor, and a resilient academic who stands against all odds. By Lufuno Masindi and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2402863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[469456,21738,398212],"class_list":["post-2402862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-latest-latest-news","tag-news","tag-rhodes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Latest-News-The-Rhodes-University-professor-who-turned-music.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2402862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2402864,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2402862\/revisions\/2402864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2402863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2402862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2402862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2402862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n Winner of the Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award, head of Rhodes’ Music Department, Prof Boudina McConnachie, connects university and town musicians, thinkers and performers. Photo by Sanele Ndlovu<\/em>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\nProf Boudina McConnachie is a flautist, podcaster, award-winner, community orchestra conductor, and a resilient academic who stands against all odds.<\/em><\/h5>\n
The orchestra that remains unbreakable<\/strong><\/h5>\n
![\"Bo](\"https:\/\/www.ru.ac.za\/media\/rhodesuniversity\/content\/communityengagement\/latestnews\/Makana_Community_Orchestra.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nListening as Research: When Sound Meets Science<\/strong><\/h5>\n
![\"Bo](\"https:\/\/www.ru.ac.za\/media\/rhodesuniversity\/content\/communityengagement\/latestnews\/IMG_0064.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTeaching beyond the classroom\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Who Owns Knowledge?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n