Abel Selaocoe’s ‘Four Spirits’ – Abel Selaocoe

Following on from the acclaimed Where is Home and Hymns of Bantu, two genre-defying albums, Four Spirits is also drawn from Abel’s South African roots and seeks to create a communal experience with the audience through cello concerto, percussion, singing & improvisation.

His first solo cello concerto and, formally speaking, a concerto cast in four movements. Co-commission by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony and Philharmonie Zuidnederland, it was written for cello, voice, percussion and orchestra, and features Bernhard Schimpelsberger alongside Selaocoe. (The recording was made with the Aurora Orchestra and Nicholas Collon at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2025.)

Yet Four Spirits is unlikely to become a standalone repertory piece for anyone other than the irrepressible Selaocoe. From its premiere in 2022 to this recording in 2025, it’s gone through myriad changes, weaving Selaocoe’s personal biography and reflections on faith, love, and community ever more closely into the textures.

Each movement takes an essential aspect of township life and thematises it: ancestors, children, faith and community. Selaocoe positions himself as chief storyteller, combining improvised cello with lyrics in the Southern Sotho and Zulu languages. If the traditional concerto soloist is engaged in an existential struggle—either with themselves or in opposition to their accompaniment—then that equation is blown apart here. Selaocoe is a conduit: a leader, through whom every spirit flows.