South African Award-Winning Jazz Performer, Composer, Curator, Producer, Scholar & Educator
Chantal Willie-Petersen is a composer, educator, scholar and activist for women's empowerment in the field of music study. She completed two master's degrees in music in Belgium (Master in the Arts, cum laude) and curates masterclasses and clinics nationally and abroad. She is a multi- instrumentalist, curator, musical director, mentor, speaker and writer. She is featured on radio and television as a subject specialist regarding South African jazz, and around discussions on music, democracy, culture, society and performance.
Chantal is a lecturer and PhD candidate at Wits University with a focus on coloured identity, African feminism and historic sound. She was awarded the DTA Wits Doctoral Grant "funded by the highly prestigious Carnegie Corporation of New York who understand the importance of supporting talented young black South Africans who wish to pursue a career in academia...” (2024), the ARA (Arts Research Africa) PhD Grant (2021) and is the recipient of The Van Lanchots Scholarship (Netherlands) and two SAMRO Awards.
She has worked as a composer/arranger, bassist/vocalist, arts researcher, lecturer, musical director, jazz specialist, content developer and curator for a myriad of interdisciplinary creative projects. Her double-masters qualification is that of Master of Music (Jazz Voice) and a Master of Music (Jazz Double Bass), from The Royal Conservatory of Music Antwerp and The LUCA School of The Arts, Lemmens University (Belgium, 2007). Her nominations include The Equity Award (University of Cape Town, 2010) and her official listing for the “Top 50 Female Musicians in Belgium” (Knack Magazine, Belgium, 2007). Chantal has recorded and toured with internationally acclaimed and Grammy-nominated band Zap Mama (2003 – 2007), citing performances at SOBS, The Webster Hall, House of Blues and extensive US Tours at prestigious festivals and featuring Grammy-award winners such as Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu, Common, Mos Def, Tania Maria – and opening for The Roots, Diane Reeves, and sharing stages with a plethora of great African artists such as Baaba Maal, Salif Keita, and Angelique Kijo. Part of her extended discography (on bass and voice) include two critically acclaimed Zap Mama albums Ancestry in Progress (2004) and Super Moon (2007). She has worked with South African jazz progenitors - Robbie Jansen, Winston Mankunku, Errol and Elvin Dyers, with South African Music-theatre legend Taliep Petersen, and with iconic South African music specialists Dr. Madosini and Dizu Plaatjies. Internationally, Chantal has performed with Toots Thielemans, Jack van Poll, Stacey Rowles, Mark Murphy, and many others. She also featured in the French movie Essaye Moi (alongside Deborah Brown, David Linx and Lizz Wright - France, 2007).
Chantal has worked and recorded with many award-winning South African artists including her collaboration on the "The Lisa Bauer Quintet" album (as bassist) - which was SAMA nominated for the "Best SA Jazz Album" (2010). Her career spans numerous performances with award-winning artists in Europe, South Africa and the USA, such as with renowned pianist Maria Kaanegaard (Norway, 2009), The George Macrae & Boney M Tour (European Tour, 2001), The Jeanne Lee Group with Kirk Lightsey/Mal Waldron (France,1999), the Feya Faku Quintet (2007 – 2011), SAFRA (a South African-French female jazz ensemble with performances at the New Morning Club (Paris, France, 2006) and with Grammy- nominated and Dove Award recipient Neville D (South Africa, 2016). Spanning between Hollywood, and theatres throughout Europe and Africa, Chantal has performed for Richard Branson, Bill Gates (New York), and holds celebrated performances at the North Sea Jazz Festival (Holland), Red Sea Jazz Festival (Israel), Montreux Jazz Festival (Switzerland), the Hollywood Bowl (LA), WOMAD (New Zealand, Ireland), the Blue Note in Tokyo (Japan), Standard Bank Makhanda Jazz Festival, The Blue Note Music Festival (Belgium), The Cape Town International Jazz Festival, Joy of Jazz Music Festival (South Africa), the Imbokodo Jazz Festival (South Africa) in 2017, The Englewood-Soweto Exchange (2019), and The Wits Jazz Cosmology Festival (2020). She was the opening artist to Grammy award-winner Cassandra Wilson (Belgium, 2001). Further, her work on numerous cross-over and commercial projects such as Pop Idols (Belgium, 2003 - 2004), and her position as part of the resident band for numerous television shows – and as bassist working on international tours with drummers Patrick Dorcean (Manou Gallou), George McCurdy (Lady Gaga) and Jeremiah Collier (Stanley Clarke) and in concerts with others such as Stephen Galland (AKA MOON, Joe Zawinul, Oumou Sangare), Hans an Oosterhout (Toots Thielemans, Dee- Dee Bridgewater) and Ida Kristine Nielsen (bassist for Prince) – is well documented and celebrated.
Chantal was visiting lecturer at the International Network of Female Jazz Musicians, with her works performed at the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway (2009). Further, her performances and compositions were featured in two seasons of The Cape Town Ghoema Orchestra, alongside South African guitarist and composer, Derek Gripper and acclaimed project-director and conductor Mac Mckenzie (South Africa, 2011 - 2013 series). She has served as researcher for the National Arts Council under the direction of Dr. Mapadimeng (South Africa, 2011 - 2012). As part of Dr. Lindelwa Dalamba’s sharing at The Nest Conference: Todd Matshikiza’s King Kong: An Opera of African Jazz (The Trevor Huddleston Centre, 2018), Chantal co-arranged and performed segments of her reworking of Todd’s opera King Kong (1959). Along with Andre Petersen, she curated a selection of images and audio clips documented at the Rivonia Trial (1963 - 1964), together with media texts archived at the State Capture (2016) hearings. These texts were put in musical dialogue and were curated as new text (music arrangements) based on/or inspired by (both thematically and musically) the original texts and audio of/from the original and historic text. These arrangements and adaptions serve as a reworking of the salient melodies, harmonic adaptions, and new performance texts for double bass, piano and voice. The project included the work of Dylan Valley - award-winning South African filmmaker. In 2019, Chantal worked with the international Wits-Soweto-Englewood exchange under the direction of acclaimed American activist and musician Ernest Dawkins (Ethnic Heritage Ensemble, Chicago). Funded by The MacArthur Foundation (USA), The Old Town School of Folk Music Foundation (USA), and Wits School of Arts, this interdisciplinary project was facilitated by Dr. Andile Khumalo. She collaborated as double bassist and composer for the South African leg of the tour. The tour included workshops with The Soweto Theatre Junior Orchestra, and the East Rand School of the Arts (in collaboration with Concerts SA). Concerts were held at the Soweto Theatre, Wits Theatre and various other venues in Johannesburg and Pretoria.
In 2020, Chantal served as an editor for the SAMRO Archives of South African Indigenous Music Transcription and Publications (funded by the US Ambassador’s Fund and the SAMRO Archive Fund). Their collection of sixty (60) indigenous pieces/song transcriptions received widespread and critical acclaim. The website was launched, and transcriptions were published in 2020. Later this year, she took the role of co-musical director for the Wits Jazz Cosmology Festival directed by Professor Brett Pyper (South Africa, Ghana, USA, 2020). This international, action research and interdisciplinary project involved her insight as audio-visual and music programme curator, composer/arranger, bassist, scriptwriter and co-musical director for a live broadcast. She created new arrangement(s) and transcription text (scores) for vocal works and presented original works. Further, she initiated and curated the new online 9-part series called the Wits Jazz Voice Masterclass Series (2020), among other projects. Chantal was also invited to speak at The Global Women's Hangout - an international network for female musicians (South Africa, USA, 2020). She discussed “Women In Jazz Education” at tertiary levels, and the role that education played in the successful trajectory of music as a career (especially as a female instrumentalist/musician in the industry). She has adjudicated examinations at the Conservatory of Music, Brussels (Belgium, 2001 - 2005), The Conservatory of Music in Gent, (Belgium, 2004), the University of Stellenbosch (2014 – 2015), Rhodes University (2018), the University of Pretoria (2019) and the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (2019). She is a featured member with/in two prestigious networks and organizations in South Africa: Women in Music and Quote This Woman+. Both these networks aim to contribute to gender transformation in our society, specifically within the media landscape and representation of women (in music) in South Africa.
In June 2022, Chantal was appointed as the first female president of the SAJE (The South African Association of Jazz Education) and will be serving the term 2022 – 2024. She served as artist in residence at the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NISHH) Awards (2022). In 2022, she was invited along with acclaimed South African author Bettina Wyngaard (winner of the Jan Rabie Rapport Prize and the vice-chair of the writers' organisation PEN Afrikaans) and American Professor Tiffany NG, to speak at the University of Michigan Center for World Performance Studies. This event also premiered Chantal’s commissioning, as one of three of the first South African and African composers to write for carillon bells: Kloppe Roep - Calling Bells, dedicated to “the enslaved women at the Cape (1657)" which was performed by world- renowned American carillonist Tiffany NG.
She took the invitation by Professor Johann Buis (Schulich Distinguished Visiting Professor/Dean’s Chair (2021-2022), at McGill University, Canada, to share her views in his forth-coming project on Music and Social Justice, and was delighted to share in the Engender South Africa discussion (Dr Clare Loveday) as part of The Royal Opera House, London programme this International Women’s. She was listed as a Contributing Author, toward the launch of the prestigious, ground-breaking and international research resource/website which highlights the role of women in music historically and globally: "A Century of Women and the Carillon". Chantal co-wrote the work “Ringing Armistice in Cape Town”: Africa’s Only Carillon Chartered by South African Women". In December 2022, she toured with the SAME PROJECT (The South Africa/America Music Exchange). The tour featured multi-Grammy nominated artists. Further, she released an article for well-established HERRI publication. Chantal was invited as panel speaker at the 2nd International Arts Research Africa Conference (2022), Wits University, and to the League of Women Bass Players - the Low B Inaugural Online Conference (Atlanta, USA) in January 2023. She served on the national panel as moderator for a session of the online Jazz Appreciation Month UKZN project and featured on one of the Wits Africa Day panels (2023).
In 2023, Chantal also adjudicated for the National Eisteddfod Academy awards, South Africa, as well as for the Education Africa International Marimba and Steelpan Festival. Her work with The NIROX Artist Residence: "Art of Superwoman and NIROX Foundation Present: PHENOMENAL WOMAN” was hosted in 2023. Chantal completed her recording on the documentary theme song "Breath of the Blues" composed by Maya Spector and produced by film maker Ben Linderoth. Chantal is also featured as an artist in this documentary release. With her own band, Chantal has featured at The Nelson Mandela Sanctuary, including a feature for the Gary Barlow Show.
She participated in the Ladies on Bass project in May this year and serve as the festival director for the SAJE Conference (2024). Her students have won the SAMRO Overseas Scholarship (Keo Kholwane, voice, 2018), and won the METRO FM Newcomer Award (2023) & a scholarship to the prestigious Manhattan School of Music (Motswedi Modiba).
https://citylifearts.co.za/wits-launches-state-of-the-art-chris-seabrooke-music-hall-as-the-institution-marks-the-start-of-its-centenary-celebrations/Cosponsored by ASC, newly commissioned carillon compositions by Bongani Ndodana-Breen, Chantal Willie-Petersen, and Kendall Williams will be premiered by Tiffany Ng on April 1, 12 PM EST at Burton Memorial Tower.
"‘Your Rhythm Is Rebellion’: Ringing in Postcolonial Carillon Solidarity," concert is part of the U-M Symposium "Dutch Studies: A Decolonial Revision" and features commissioned works by Bongani Ndodana-Breen, Chantal Willie-Petersen, and Kendall Williams
Wits University Lecturer and PhD candidate, Chantal Willie-Petersen on Newzroom Afrika.
