--- title: "Heritage is not static: It must be heard, lived and carried forward" description: "Every September, South Africans are invited to celebrate their heritage. We wear traditional clothes, eat food that resonates with our culture, revisit familiar stories, listen to music that connects us to home and remind ourselves of the extraordinary diversity that makes this country what it is. Maybe Heritage Month should challenge us to do more than remember." type: "NewsArticle" publisher: "Daily Maverick" site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za" section: "Sponsored Content" author: "Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra" author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/mzansi-national-philharmonic-orchestra/" canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-10-05-heritage-is-not-static-it-must-be-heard-lived-and-carried-forward/" published: "2026-10-05T08:28:36" lang: "en-ZA" word_count: 770 --- # Heritage is not static: It must be heard, lived and carried forward > Every September, South Africans are invited to celebrate their heritage. We wear traditional clothes, eat food that resonates with our culture, revisit familiar stories, listen to music that connects us to home and remind ourselves of the extraordinary diversity that makes this country what it is. Maybe Heritage Month should challenge us to do more than remember. By Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra · Published 5 October 2026, 10:28 SAST ## Content It should ask us what we are doing to ensure that the cultural inheritance we celebrate today remains alive, relevant and accessible to the generations that will come after us. Heritage cannot survive simply because we have preserved it. It survives when we continue to interpret it, perform it, teach it, question it and give young people the opportunity to make it their own. This is where the importance of music and performed arts come in. This country has never had a singular musical identity. Our sound is the product of many histories meeting one another: indigenous musical traditions, choral music, jazz, gospel, mbaqanga, maskandi, kwaito, hip-hop and contemporary popular music, alongside Western classical traditions that have themselves been reshaped by generations of South African musicians. Therefore, our responsibility is to examine these traditions and fully recognise the conversation between them. The Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra was established with precisely this broader national purpose: To build an orchestra that reflects South Africa's talent and diversity, to make orchestral music accessible to wider audiences, and to use music to build relationships and create opportunities. Today, the Orchestra can draw on up to 110 highly talented South African musicians from provincial orchestras, universities and the freelance sector. According to South Africa's Cultural and Creative Industries mapping work, the creative economy contributed approximately R161 billion to the country's GDP, equivalent to just under 3% of GDP, while accounting for approximately 6% of total employment, around one million jobs. These numbers should change the way we speak about culture. [YouTube video: "YouTube video"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGt5mVLWL2s) Culture is not an ornament to economic development. It is part of economic development. It creates work for musicians, producers, composers, technicians, designers, administrators, educators, venues, broadcasters, publicists, transport providers and countless others who form part of the wider cultural value chain. The creative economy also has the capacity to tell South Africa's story beyond our borders, creating opportunities for cultural diplomacy, tourism and international collaboration. However, the numbers alone are not enough. The real measure of our success must be whether the child growing up in a township, village or small town can see a future for themselves in the arts. Can they encounter orchestral music without believing it belongs to somebody else's world? Can a talented young violinist imagine performing on an international stage without first having to leave South Africa to discover that possibility? This is where access and development become inseparable from heritage. We cannot ask young South Africans to preserve traditions that they have never been given the opportunity to encounter. Furthermore, we cannot expect transformation to happen organically in institutions whose pathways into professional careers remain inaccessible to many. ![Bongani Tembe](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/_fcrz8H9UDIClPL8lLarsngn1Yw=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/2998/Picture01Oct-2_566388.jpg) Development programmes, cadetships, fellowships, youth orchestras, music education and mentorship cannot be regarded as peripheral initiatives. They are part of the infrastructure of cultural preservation. This matters significantly in a country where questions of access, representation and historical exclusion remain deeply connected to the arts. Heritage Month should not become an annual exercise in [nostalgia.](http://nostalgia.It) It should be a moment to ask whether we are building cultural institutions capable of carrying South Africa's story into the future. That means commissioning South African composers. It means performing music that speaks to our many histories. It means taking exceptional musicians into communities where audiences may never previously have encountered a symphony orchestra. It means creating pathways for young people to move from talent to professional careers. It means taking South African music to the world, and not as an exotic curiosity, but as work of genuine artistic excellence. That is the kind of heritage work we need. Because, heritage is not a museum piece; it is a living conversation between generations. It belongs to the grandmother who sings a song she learnt from her mother, the child discovering an instrument for the first time, the composer writing a new work from an old memory, and the orchestra bringing all those histories together in a concert hall. Our task goes beyond protecting what we inherited. It is to ensure that future generations inherit something richer; and that is the most meaningful way to celebrate Heritage Month: not by asking only, “Where do we come from?” But by asking the more difficult question: What are we building that those who come after us will call heritage? **DM** ***Bongani Tembe****is the Chief Executive and Artistic Director of Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Johannesburg and KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestras. Mr Tembe also serves as a council member on the National Arts Council of South Africa. Bongani Tembe was awarded by the French Government in 2016, the prestigious title of Officier des Arts et Lettres.* ![Image](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/Vs1lrCJclK5ufPGHfRktB50w45s=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/2998/Picture01Oct_185617.jpg)