A man steps onto the stage, cello in hand. He looks out into the concert hall, spreads his arms and says, ‘Welcome. Tonight, you are not listeners, but participants. Our meeting is an exchange.’ Then he begins to sing and play, and everything becomes clear. He absorbs the audience’s energy like a human antenna and returns it tenfold. The concert hall shifts into an intimate living room, and everyone who witnessed it walks away transformed.
This is essentially how a concert by cellist, singer and composer Abel Selaocoe (pronounced See-lau-twee) unfolds. As the central artist at Klarafestival 2026, he will play three concerts spanning the full spectrum of his musical world. From traditional music from his native South Africa to baroque, jazz, contemporary classical and improvisation: he melds all these influences into a unique body of work, centred on identity and cultural exchange. A few months before the festival, we look ahead with him.
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Katherina Lindekens in conversation with Abel Selaocoe
text by Klarafestival
Klarafestival: Abel Selaocoe & Brussels Philharmonic ∙ 29.03.2026 ∙ Flagey
Anyone who has witnessed one of Abel Selaocoe's electrifying concerts, knows that for this South-African cellist, the meaning of music reaches far beyond the notes. His compositions transcend genre, time and culture. They speak of identity and home, of origin and connection, in the spirit of the ubuntu philosophy: “You are because I am; I am because you are.”
Composer Jessie Montgomery combines exhilarating music with a profound social awareness. She writes a new cello concerto for Abel Selaocoe, matching her engagement with his temperament. You’ll also get to discover her lively Coincident Dances and three Separation Songs by her colleague Carlos Simon. This evening of African American masterpieces will be rounded off with Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3.
discover moreThe theme of Klarafestival 2026 is inspired by your debut album with Bantu Ensemble: Where Is Home. What does the word ‘home’ mean to you?
Home... It's comforting, isn't it? Home is empowering. I think home is never just a geographical space. It’s full of nostalgia, full of memories, things that make you who you are. Home can also be something unconscious: the things you tend to do without thinking, the people you go to for refuge. If you have a place of refuge, you have a place to build.
When did you first realise that music could be a home for you?
That feeling has always been there, for as long as I can remember. Music was such a powerful presence in our house: my mother, my brother, everybody was constantly singing. That's something essential to how people come together in South Africa. It's connected to religion, but also to a spiritual belief in our ancestors. For me, singing is the most natural thing in the world, like a mother tongue.
How did the cello come into the picture?
My brother was very curious and saw music as a key that could take us anywhere. He took me to an outreach programme in Soweto, where he played the bassoon. He chose the cello for me and said, ‘That’s where you're going.’ So that's how that happened. (laughs) At first, I found my own way around the instrument: I plucked, pushed and turned it around. It was pure play, amazing. Thanks to that school in Soweto, I later discovered Bach and Beethoven and was able to refine my technique.
All kinds of influences resonate in the musical world you are building today. Can you give us a tour?
In the township where I grew up, all the doors were open. As a child, you walk around and hear jazz coming from a boombox. You hear the neighbours praying and drumming for a ceremony. You hear activist songs, football songs... a cacophony of noises. Some of them reflect each other across colonial boundaries. Take the hymns from my childhood, for example: they connect South African church music with Bach's chorales and even with protest songs. I am the product of all those influences. The art is in working with them and finding the truth for yourself. That idea is the culmination of my sound world.
Improvisation is a total sensory experience, an exploration of your mind, body and creativity. It is being lost and not being lost all at once.
It's striking how freely you deal with the musical past. How do you view repertoire?
I mainly try to tell a story. We stand on the shoulders of so many. The reason that you are here, how you speak, how you move: there’s a whole history behind you, of people that worked so hard for you to be in that position. So: look back, search for stories that are unique. And take the influences of your peers, tell a story about what is happening right now. There is a thread running through history that binds us all together.
You often speak about improvisation as a key to the imagination. What happens inside of you when you improvise?
As a child, I had a friend in South Africa who was a great trumpet player. He compared improvising to the feeling you get when you fall down a hill. You're scratching the ground and you're trying to hold on and trying to find your balance. Improvisation is a total sensory experience, an exploration of your mind, body and creativity. It is being lost and not being lost all at once. You look for solutions in the moment and travel from one story to the next, without having to follow a logical route. Improvisation sets us free.
Is taking that leap also what you offer your listeners when you invite them to sing with you?
Certainly, although that also has to do with a South African – or rather, universal – foundation that I grew up with. When someone stands in front of a group of people, I don't believe that the crowd is only receiving. Important information is transferred in both directions. When people come to a concert, it's not to listen passively. In the space we share, there's going to be an energy that we are responsible for as a group.
How do you stay at home within yourself when you're on stage?
Through genuine honesty. You stand in front of people and you begin to create something out of thin air. That's incredible! It would be unfair to impose perfection on that. Anything can happen at any time. I think that spontaneity is exactly what people are looking for in a concert. That realisation helps me to ground myself. I'm not here for your perfection. I'm here to give you a sense of creativity, a reflection of yourself.
A moment of community too?
Absolutely. No matter how different our lives are, we sit together in a room for a few hours and are connected with each other for a moment. That's magical. When we go back out into the world afterwards, we feel like we belong somewhere, like we're part of a community. We don't even need to know each other's names, it's enough to understand what it means to be human.
In the liner notes of the album Where Is Home, you ask yourself: ‘If I say “heal” as many times as I can, will the world heal?’ Do you believe that music can heal?
Certainly. It's important to look at the small things sometimes, because the big things can be quite overwhelming. And it's good to forget yourself every now and then. I think music can help with that. Music can heal in so many ways. It can dissolve tensions between people, clear up misunderstandings. Words and body language are often misunderstood, but in music, people understand each other. Today, we all have playlists on our phones with music from different cultures. We can imagine ourselves in so many places at once and learn to understand so many different people.
Jessie and I have different African backgrounds: she comes from the United States, I come from South Africa. Yet we tell stories that seem to connect somehow. So we started thinking about our mothers: how did they live and think, what were they like? Did they do similar things? Inspired by those questions, Jessie started writing. She is such a creative force; I can't wait to discover her concerto.
At Klarafestival, you will be playing three concerts, the first of which will be with your own Bantu Ensemble. What does this group mean to you?
Bantu Ensemble is my musical home base. Our work is about friendship, identity and community, but also about delving deeply into the unknown, playing without thinking. As a quartet, we bring together a range of sounds. Our pianist, Fred Thomas, is an incredible baroque musician, so we play Bach and weave other styles into it. Percussionist Dudù Kouaté creates cosmic sounds with a huge arsenal of African percussion instruments. He opens up a world that touches on improvisation and free jazz. Bass guitarist Alan Keary has an amazing groove, which makes us want to dance. All these elements are part of our language.
What made you create the ensemble?
I think I wanted to blur the boundaries between classical music and my own work even further. These musicians are so creative that I don't even have to tell them when to play classical music or when to take a different path. Our exchange feels very natural.
For your second concert, ‘Kindred Spirits’, you put together an adventurous quartet.
That project also brings different worlds together. Soprano Héloïse Werner is mainly involved in contemporary music and therefore uses her voice very differently from me. I thought it would be interesting to have a dialogue between two singers who do such different things, both vocally and culturally. Percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger specialises in Indian classical music; he also brings a battery of instruments with him. And then there’s jazz pianist Fabian Fiorini, who effortlessly combines tradition and improvisation in his work. Each of us four will present musical material to the group, as a kind of gift. Based on those contributions, we will improvise together. I’m curious to see where we will end up!
Finally, you will perform as a soloist with Brussels Philharmonic, in a brand-new cello concerto by the American composer Jessie Montgomery.
It will be the Belgian premiere of that work, which is very exciting. Jessie and I have different African backgrounds: she comes from the United States, I come from South Africa. Yet we tell stories that seem to connect somehow. So we started thinking about our mothers: how did they live and think, what were they like? Did they do similar things? Inspired by those questions, Jessie started writing. She is such a creative force; I can't wait to discover her concerto.
