Neo Muyanga

The South-African Neo Muyanga is a composer, musician, director and philosopher. He was born in Soweto, where he grew up during the hard years of student protests. First, he studied natural sciences and philosophy at the United World College in Triëste. An extraordinary teacher acquainted him with choral music and the tradition of madrigals. This inspired love for the telling of stories in musical form. Next, he started to inquire into the Italian tradition of madrigals under the supervision of the renowned choral director Piero Poclen in Triëst, Italty. 

Neo writes, plays and composes chamber music for big ensembles and choirs. Some of his opera's are: the chamber opera The Flower of Shembe from 2012 and the opera Heart of Redness from 2015. He also composed music for the prestigious British Royal Shakespeare Company and South-Africa's famous Handspring Puppet Company. 

Neo has worked for Dutch National Opera before, as his work as an artist and thinker moves and inspires us. For years, he has been a praised keynote speaker on our Opera Forward Festival. In his search for music for our globalized world, he puts inspiration from different music genres and traditions. How Anansi freed the stories of the world was his debut on our grand stage.