Milton van Wyk

BIOGRAPHY

Milton van Wyk is the current head of the music library at De Munt Opera in Brussels. His duties include mediating between conductors and management regarding the choice of score editions, preparing scores for performance, and establishing a digital archive of past performances.
Born in Cape Town he studied piano with Helena van Heerden at the College of Music, University of Cape Town, after which he taught at various high schools on the Cape Flats before immigrating to Belgium in 2001. In Belgium he held various teaching and administrative jobs before being employed in his current function.
In order to retain links with South Africa he embarked on further music studies at the University of South Africa under the tutelage of Niel Geldenhuys, George King, and Marc Duby. His studies included a biography of musician Robbie Jansen for his BMus (Hons) research paper and a biography of Basil ‘Mannenberg’ Coetzee for his MMus thesis. His primary interest is life stories.

RESEARCH

Milton’s PhD research is a historiography of the Golden City Dixies, a carnival troupe conceptualised in Johannesburg in the early 1950s. After a series of ‘farewell concerts’ primarily organised as fundraisers, the Golden City Dixies eventually left South Africa for a tour of Europe in 1959. After moderate success in the United Kingdom and Ireland they set sail for Scandinavia where ten of the twenty members applied for political asylum effectively ending the Dixies tour. On returning home the Golden City Dixies regrouped but died a premature death partly a result of apartheid regulations governing freedom of movement and performance restriction. The exiled Golden City Dixies were only allowed to return to South Africa after 1990.
His supervisor is Paula Fourie.