The Real René Avenant

No, I am not a French girl. I was born in Cape Town in 1959,(with male genitalia intact). I started playing the guitar at age 11. I think I aspired to becoming a replacement for Jimi Hendrix who had died a few months earlier.

By the time I was 16 I had become tired of playing "covers", Purple Haze, Black Magic Woman, Smoke on the Water, et al, so I decided to start growing my own music.

I began by engulfing myself in music theory, Harmony, Counterpoint, Sonata form, Be Bop, Cyclic jazz, Eastern quarter tone, Acoustics, Latin rhythm Patterns, and anything else that could be found under the heading MUSIC in the public library.

I then underwent many frustrating years of garage bands that stayed in the basement because they spent more time dreaming up goofy names for "the band" than trying to read the dots that I wrote for them.

In 1989 I discovered MIDI, the ability to connect a computer to a little black box stuffed full of miniature musicians that will do anything you tell them to, provided you can speak computernese (did I mention that I happen to have a degree in computer science)

Since then I have written music for many productions including:

  • 1992 Unclenching the Fist (Foundation for the Creative Arts)
  • 1993 Children's dance education program (NAPAC).
  • 1993 Off Long Street (Jazzart)
  • 1994 Kara (The Foundation for the Creative Arts)
  • 1995 Medea (Magnet Theatre Productions/Jazzart) won a Vita Award for the best South African production.
  • 1996 Junction (Capab/Jazzart) won a Vita Award for the most outstanding choreography (Alfred Hinkel)
  • 1997 Umoya Womzanzi (PG Glass)

    Currently I am working on "Four", a CAPAB/Jazzart production which opens at the Nico Arena on 14 December 1997

    I see no compelling reason to confine myself to particular class, genre or style of music. To me, Rock, Jazz, Techno, Baroque, or New Age, are arbitrary labels that the idiot in the music store sticks on CD's so that it will take you years find one that you really like.

    For me music is a graphic experience. I can't listen to music without seeing an animated landscape unfold in front of me, nor can I watch drama without hearing sound measuring out the emotional nuances of the scene.