2026.09.18 – Daniel Boico – What happens when you take a classical orchestra and introduce the rhythms, improvisation and energy of jazz?

0:00I am 100 and 1.9 megahertz of life. I'm really, really excited about this next conversation. And I'll tell you, well, there are many reasons why. But one of the reasons is when I, as a writer, when I sit down to write, I have this mental image and I've never really expressed it before. I might do so very, very clumsily. But it really occurred to me when I was doing some prep for this discussion. But I have this mental image. If you can just picture, I sit down at a desk, a table, where I'm writing. I do this a few times a week. And I have this mental image of thousands and thousands of words just floating around, almost in chaos, right? And my job is to bring those, pick the right words and craft them onto a piece of paper

1:04that forms an article, a paragraph, or whatever it is that I'm trying to convey. And there are different ways in which to do it, you could do it in a very rigid way, which is not my writing style, or you could do it fairly loosely and use words and play with words in a much looser sense. Okay? I know you're thinking what the hell has a Scott to do with the next interview, but just listen to the way in which I'm picturing it. When I picture music and somebody writing music and organizing a piece, I picture it very much in the same way that you've got all of these music that the notes are all over the show. And the way in which I picture classical music is that it is very, very prescribed and precise.

2:05Jazz is maybe a lot looser. Maybe it's more like, maybe my writing, which is a little bit more all over the show and less constrained. Now we have a situation where classical music is meeting jazz through the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra who are presenting some phonic jazz to any 26 at the Linder Auditorium on Heritage Day, which is obviously the 24th of September. Daniel Boyker is the conductor of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra. He joins us this morning. And Daniel, I don't know if you heard that maybe a bit strange way in which I see this. I'm trying to picture how classical and jazz come together in a production. Talk to me. Good morning Howard. Thank you.

3:05It's not strange at all. I think it's very nicely put because I don't know, maybe music is even stranger than that because you only have 12 notes. And those 12 notes make up so much, so many different kinds of music. And I like to call it music because a symphony orchestra can play Mozart and Beethoven and Brahms and Chakowski. But it can also play jazz. And next Thursday's concert is the perfect example of that because combining these jazz sounds with a full symphony orchestra is one of the most impressive things I think of you are listener and see. So how does it work for the musicians? Do they, because it's quite different in terms of styles, in terms of approach.

4:11How do they come together? Well, I think rhythm is probably number one that has to be felt in a show like this because jazz, and you know, this show is, I mean, what is jazz? There are so many different kinds of jazz. And this show is going to be one of these eclectic combinations of contemporary jazz, jazz fusion, all kinds of sounds. But what unifies all of that is definitely rhythm. Right. And it's different rhythms that come to us from African cultures, from American jazz cultures like swing and things like that. So all of this is obviously notated in sheet music.

5:11Of course. And the musicians in the orchestra, they're reading this. But obviously with a pep in the step, you know, because it's not as quote, unquote square as Mozart would be. This is a lot more flowing and a lot more bouncy. And there's always a rhythmic drive when you do a jazz concert. So there'll be a lot of finger snapping, I'm sure. Do the classical musicians enjoy this or as just a maybe a reprieve? Or do they see it as quite challenging because it's not within the more usual style of performance? Yeah, it can be challenging at times. But I think also a lot of fun because the artists that usually play with the orchestra in a show like this are very cool and outgoing and always good natured.

6:18And smiling and of course, there's lots of body movement because this is that kind of vibe. So I think that we enjoy this quite a bit. And you can see that in the body language of the musicians on stage that everybody's moving around and snapping their fingers and tapping their feet and having a good time. How much of a challenge is it for you as a conductor bringing these different elements together? It's challenging in a different way because not only do I have to control everything that's going on with the orchestra and it's a big ensemble of probably around 65 people. But then there is that element of the artists who are with us and these are jazz artists.

7:20And jazz is notorious for improvisation. So I can tell you already that from the music that I've received from Victor Massondo, for instance, who is on this show, there are sections in the sheet music that are blank in my score. They're completely blank. There's like a period of 12 or 16 measures that are blank. And I know that in those blank measures, there's going to be some kind of soloing done by the artist that is going to be half improvised. That must be very hard for somebody like you. You don't know where it's going. It wasn't notated in the score.

8:20I will just have to be listening very, very carefully because I don't know what's going to be happening but there's going to be a sort of telling that passes. That's going to be my, what I cling to. It's the amount of beats that are going to pass between when the orchestra is stopped playing and when the orchestra comes back to play. And talk to me about South African compositions being included. Is it important? Was it important for considering that it's heritage day? Absolutely. The soloists who are joining us, Lyndi Ngonelo and Sibuciso Victor Mosondo are both South Africans. Both jazzists of a certain genre. Lyndi is a pianist and Victor is a legendary bassist. And they write their own original music.

9:21And this music is by default South African because they incorporate, they fuse into their jazz language, South African elements like rhythms and South African folk tunes and things like that. So this is definitely a South African vibe that's coming from these artists. Both jazz, I think, and classical music can be a little bit intimidating to people who don't know them well. Does bringing them together make them more accessible, do you think? I think so, especially with the selections that we have for the listeners on this concert because the symphonic selections that we're going to have are very, very popular.

10:22So we have George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. And everybody knows this. And it's going to be a medley of the best tunes. And it's jazzy, but it's also symphonic because it has a big sound and a big resonance around it. So it combines the two with these beautiful melodies. And then we also will have Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. And also the best tunes from West Side Story, all the great tunes that people have grown up to love again in this rich resonance sound of a symphony orchestra. But what is really interesting, I think, on this program, and a very rare piece to be included on a program is Duke Ellington's Nutcracker Suite. And I don't think anyone in that audience would have heard that piece before. These are, this is a selection of five pieces from the Chakowski's original Nutcracker, but rearranged in a jazzy way, employing a full symphony orchestra.

11:34What you see in front of you is a enormous symphony orchestra, but what sounds is a big band. And that is just so exciting, a very jazzy big band playing its own take on the Nutcracker Suite. Absolutely, absolutely fantastic. I encourage anybody to attend, and you can go to the JPO website. You can go to Quickhead to get tickets as we constantly tell you. Daniel Boyko, this sounds like a phenomenal opportunity. And I encourage people, I encourage everybody to get tickets if they can, because this is a unique, unique opportunity. Thank you for taking the time to speak to us, and I hope that it goes really, really well. Jillian says, I love this guy. Yeah, it's just got, it's just something so incredibly, incredibly special about this type of event.