Kevin Volans

Kevin Volans (born 6 July 1949) is a composer associated with the post-minimalist movement in contemporary composition, and a key figure in the Cologne School (Fox 2007, 27–28).

Kevin Volans was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa on 6 July 1949, and even though he has spent most of his life outside his native country, is the best known South African composer active today.

In 1972, he graduated from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg with a Bachelor of Music degree, followed by post-graduate education at the University of Aberdeen. From 1973 to 1981 he lived in Cologne, where he studied with at the Musikhochschule. During this period he served as Stockhausen's teaching assistant in 1975–76 (Taylor 2001).

During this period of time, along with his contemporaries Walter Zimmermann, Gerald Barry, and Clarence Barlow, he became associated with the Cologne School, one of several musical movements sometimes also called the "New Simplicity" (Fox 2007, 27–28). These New Simplicity movements would later influence post-minimalist composition.

After conducting several field recording trips in 1979, Volans began writing pieces based upon African compositional techniques. This characteristic made him one of the most distinctive composers on the European new music circuit at the time. Some of his works such as Matepe and the first version of White Man Sleeps utilize early music instruments including harpsichord (tuned in African tuning) and viola da gamba.

The first of his compositions to reach a wide audience was a new version of White Man Sleeps, made at the suggestion of the Kronos Quartet in 1985. This version reorders the movements of the original version, and uses conventional western tuning. The Kronos Quartet's album of that name (which however features only two of Volans's five movements) became a best-seller, and White Man Sleeps has been taken up by many choreographers, notably Siobhan Davies and James Kudelka. Volans followed it up with Hunting: Gathering, his second quartet, written for Kronos in 1987.

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