just keep on doing what you are doing

work from a proper personal foundation - that is, have your starting point within yourself (in other words, follow your passion, let your business also be an expression of something of your true person)

i once played cello at a shopping mall, earning tips from bystanders. this i did for the first five years of my career. an elderly man stopped and asked me about myself. he then went on to lecture me on how my talents are wasted playing on the streets. i told him he may very well think so, but did not all great things started small, and moreover, what is wrong with the streets? don't you get shaped there in a special way for later growth? and what about the freedom and enjoyment of the moment? he kept disagreeing and left. a week later i played on the same spot and he was there again. he approached me and said: you know, you are right. you keep on doing your thing. i do not see where it can go, but i should not be the one to prescribe to you. i smiled, knowing that he made my day. i played on, earning more than usual for the day. i did not know myself where it would go from there, but at least, with him i could share an openness. possibility thrives on openness. that's all.

probably humanist. all we do as humans revolves primarily around being human and relating as humans to humans and the rest around us. any decision, if it is to be relied on, needs to reveal its relevance and healthiness in terms of human relations. i define business as the way people relate to each other in terms of physical goods and services. buying and selling, if it is to work well on a holistic basis, needs to be valued in terms of the relational implications between humans, rather than personal gain or profit. If relations drive your decisions you can hardly go wrong. If it is about profit in the first place, an imbalance sets in. profit is a spin-off of good relations (service!), and cannot be an aim in itself if any measure of quality, ethics and durability is to be retained in doing business

No. But there is probably only a few that come close.

I grew up as a white person in Apartheid South Africa, being trained as cellist and pianist in the Western Classical tradition. However, as a very young child, my first musical stimulation came from my father who played by ear with no musical training. I also spent my early years in the hills of Kwazulu Natal, surrounded by the spontaneous harmonized singing of the local black communities.

While a student in philosophy and theology during the crisis years of the late eighties in Stellenbosch, the whole edifice of Eurocentric thinking came crushing down in me. This had a major impact on my musical career, which became based on spontaneous music making.

To me, the notion of spontaneity goes deeper than what is referred to as "improvisation." Like traditional African music, the art form becomes a means to the end of human connectivity. What I would like to present in my performances, workshops and retreats, is also an interactive exploration of how we can come together as humans through sound, in a context where both Western Classicism and African traditionalism have been deconstructed.

While we all retain a certain imprint of culture and conceptual paradigm, our challenge is to find means to evolve our thinking systems and art forms to not only reflect our times, but to connect the deeper and more sound roots of our common African heritage with the juggernaut of 21st century modernity.

Spontaneous Creativity, as I present it, hopes to be one way of contributing to this existential process, both individually and collectively.