Michael Bullivant tells Petroc Trelawny how he became Bulawayo’s chief musical impresario
For an extraordinary month in 1953, Bulawayo became the epicentre of culture in the southern hemisphere. In celebration of the centenary of the colonialist and diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes, the Royal Opera House and Sadlers Wells Ballet took up residence. Sir John Gielgud staged and starred in a production of Richard II. The musical programme was left to the Hallé Orchestra, who flew in from Manchester with their music director Sir John Barbirolli and gave 14 concerts. A corrugated-iron aircraft hanger was temporarily named ‘The Theatre Royal’; it even boasted a royal box from where the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret witnessed an anniversary gala featuring more than 300 visiting performers.
Along with umpiring a cricket match and visiting Rhodes’s grave, Barbirolli was called upon to lay the foundation stone of the nascent Rhodesian Academy of Music. And somehow, after nearly six decades of political upheaval and economic crisis, the academy still functions as a place of musical learning. It lacks a brass faculty right now, but students can study singing, piano, flute and violin. It owns 20 pianos, including two full-size Steinway concert grands, and hundreds pack the main hall for regular video screenings of great operas and ballets.
The Academy’s director is a jovial 62-year-old originally from Boston in Lincolnshire. After Cambridge, Michael Bullivant taught history at a series of English prep schools. Seeking adventure, he travelled to South Africa, but found all the good teaching jobs had already been snapped up. Then a friend tipped him off about a temporary post as Latin master at Bulawayo’s Milton School. It was the start of a 30-year career that saw him retire as deputy headmaster.
His arrival in Bulawayo coincided with the failure of peace talks between Ian Smith’s breakaway Rhodesian government and the African National Congress. ‘The terrorist war was raging,’ Bullivant recalls. ‘I should of course be calling it the war of independence,’ he adds, with a wry smile.Even though Smith’s regime was beginning to crumble, white settlers still enjoyed a high standard of living.
And they were entertained. Visiting artists in the 1970s included the flautist James Galway, baritone Gérard Souzay and cellist David Geringas. Having not expected much in the way of Western culture, Bullivant was thrilled to discover he could satisfy his passion for music, but had his doubts over the way concerts were run. After writing a critical letter to the Bulawayo Chronicle, he was immediately signed up to the board of the city Arts Council, and became its chairman two years later, a post he has held ever since.
Independence in 1980, and the election of Robert Mugabe as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, saw Western artists flocking to be part of Africa’s exciting ‘new nation’ — but the party didn’t last long. As the economy stagnated, and white settlers packed their bags, musical events became a low priority. But that didn’t stop Bullivant and the then conductor of the Bulawayo Philharmonic, Derek Hudson, giving the Zimbabwean première of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The concert required the sanction of Mugabe himself, as the ‘Ode to Joy’ had been the tune appropriated for ‘Rise O Voices of Rhodesia’, the national anthem during the UDI years.
In 1997 Bullivant and a few colleagues staged the first ever Bulawayo Music Festival. It featured symphony concerts, organ recitals in St John’s Cathedral, and an outdoor concert on the Zambezi, where violinist Tasmin Little played Bach to an audience including several hippopotamuses. In the brochure of that first festival, Michael Bullivant made reference to ‘times of great economic uncertainty in Zimbabwe’, words that have featured in every programme since.
‘We did the 2008 festival for £16,000,’ he says; ‘that was 20 concerts. Air fares and fees all came out of that. Not far short of what it costs to hire a hall in London for a night or two.’ Artists take a nominal fee, and stay with festival supporters. A few days watching elephants and big cats in the Hwange game park is another part of the remuneration package. ‘More artists want to come than we can accommodate,’ adds Bullivant.
And he believes affairs are taking a turn for the better. ‘I know I’m an eternal optimist but the Movement for Democratic Change has already made a considerable difference.’ He has managed to secure the support of Morgan Tsvangirai’s new education and culture minister, David Coltart. ‘He understands the importance of what we do, both at the academy and with the festival ...He’s suggested there could be official funding for us when more pressing problems are sorted.’
The Bulawayo Music Festival’s greatest problem now is its constituency. ‘Our white patrons are getting elderly,’ says Bullivant. ‘Our future lies with getting a black audience in.’ Outreach has become key to both the festival and the Academy, with concerts in the suburbs, and cheap or free tickets for schoolchildren. ‘We’re learning as we go,’ Bullivant admits. ‘Last year we brought in 60 schoolchildren for a morning concert of the Beethoven Opus 1 Trios. It was perhaps rather too demanding a programme for first exposure to classical music. Mind you, they were impeccably behaved, better than English kids would be.’
There are no longer enough musicians for the Bulawayo Philharmonic to perform symphonies; the organ in St John’s Cathedral is in a poor state of repair; the choir that once sang ‘Messiah’ and ‘Dream of Gerontius’ long forgotten. But Michael Bullivant has no plans to wind down his post as Bulawayo’s chief musical impresario. He tells me that his GP and book-keeper are both 80: ‘We have no financial alternative but to carry on working — so that means I’ll be promoting concerts and festivals, and keeping an eye on the musicians’ training at the Academy for a long time yet.’
He explains that perhaps the biggest improvement in recent months has been the legalisation of hard currency in Zimbabwe. Now teachers’ fees and bills for violin strings and piano hammers can be paid for in US dollars or South African rand. As we say our farewells, Michael Bullivant gives me a gift that well illustrates his point — a ten trillion dollar Zimbabwean bank note, issued in January. At home later, I tap the figure into a currency converter. It’s worth precisely 2.7 pence.
Two fund-raising concerts for the Zimbabwe Academy of Music take place on Thursday, 30 April at St Peters Church, Eaton Square, London SW1 and on Wednesday, 6 May at the Guildhall School of Music. The 7th Bulawayo Music Festival is scheduled to run 19–23 May 2010.