Chris van Rhyn

Chris van Rhyn holds the degrees BMus, BMus (Honours) (Composition), MMus (Composition) and PhD (Music) from Stellenbosch University. He teaches Music Theory at North-West University’s School of Music and is the Director of the Research Focus Area Musical Arts in South Africa: Resources and Applications (MASARA). His research focuses on the works of art music composers from Anglophone Africa, especially those of the British-South African composer Priaulx Rainier. Chris is also engaged in artistic (practice-based and -led) research in Composition.    

Chris has presented research papers at conferences in South Africa, Serbia, Ireland, Chile, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. He has published articles and reviews in South African Music Studies, Musicus, Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies, Musicology Australia, Perspectives of New Music, the Österreichische Musikzeitschrift and the World New Music Magazine, and a book chapter in Ritualised Belonging: Musicing and Spirituality in the South African Context (Peter Lang Verlag).

Chris’s compositions have been performed locally and abroad, including Harvard University’s Paine Hall in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and at the World New Music Days in Johannesburg. He has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and has presented guest lectures at the University of Lincoln (UK) and the University of Malawi (Zomba). Chris represented NewMusicSA, the South African chapter of the International Society for Contemporary Music, as a delegate at their annual assemblies in Kosice, Bratislava and Vienna (2013) and Wroclaw (2014). He served as editor of NewMusicSA’s Bulletin from 2010-2015. Chris is now an Associate Editor for the US-based journal Perspectives of New Music and guest edited an edition on Africa.