Abel Selaocoe: Tiny Desk Concert

Abel Selaocoe: Tiny Desk Concert with tags npr, npr music, national public radio, live, performance, tiny desk, tiny desk concert, tony desk, tiny concert

Tom Huizenga | March 3, 2025

Abel Selaocoe arrived early for his Tiny Desk performance so he could pop into a studio to talk with NPR’s Morning Edition. That’s where the versatile South African cellist and vocalist told the touching story of how he first got the hang of his instrument. Unable to afford a real cello, Selaocoe drew the strings of the instrument on paper, then pasted it to his chest to practice the fingerings.

These days, he tours the world offering his singular synthesis of global, jazz and classical sounds, always remembering his roots, even when collaborating with the likes of Yo-Yo Ma.

Selaocoe’s adroit bowing and percussive fingering gives the cello a vast color palette, with sounds of flutes and drums. His vocalizing, mostly in the Sesotho language, includes a kind of gravelly throat singing in which two or more pitches are produced, heard in the opening song which he dedicates to mothers and strong women who “[hold] the knife on the sharp side.”

French baroque meets contemporary South Africa in “Les Voix Humaines/Tsohle Tsohle,” where Selaocoe braids music by Marin Marais around tender singing. And he closes with an improvisation, noting that he prefers “people who don’t write the script and re-read it again.” The tune begins in a flurry of bowed arpeggios, like white caps on the lake, and evolves into plucked strings with metal clips attached, reminiscent of thumb pianos.

Selaocoe has indeed written his own distinctive “script.” In classical music, there are those who follow age-old traditions — and that’s just fine. But then there are those, like Selaocoe, who create brand-new traditions.

SET LIST

“Ka Bohaleng”

Marin Marais/Selaocoe: “Les Voix Humaines/Tsohle Tsohle”

“Dinaka”

MUSICIANS

Abel Selaocoe: cello, vocals

TINY DESK TEAM

Producer: Tom Huizenga

Director: Joshua Bryant

Audio Technical Director: Josephine Nyounai

Host/Series Producer: Bobby Carter

Video Editor: Kara Frame

Videographers: Joshua Bryant, Maia Stern

Audio Engineer: Josh Newell

Production Assistant: Dora Levite

Photographer: Michael Zamora

Tiny Desk Team: Lars Gotrich, Ashley Pointer

Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed

Series Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson

VP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins

#tinydesk #nprmusic #abelselaocoe