Michael Mosoeu Moerane

Michael Mosoeu Moerane (20 September 1904 – 27 January 1980) was a choral music composer and the first black South African to write a symphonic poem, in 1941. Early life Moerane was a member of the Bafokeng, specifically the Mahoona clan – traditional healers whose longer history can be traced back several centuries through the lineage of the Bakwena royal family. He was born on 20 September 1904 in Mongoloaneng, a village in the Mount Fletcher district of South Africa close to the border with Lesotho. He was one of seven children born to Eleazar Jakane Moerane and his wife Sofi Majara, whose grandparents were disciples of Moshoeshoe I and were among the first Basotho converts to Christianity. The two most celebrated are his younger brother, Manasseh Tebatso Moerane, the educationist, cultural activist and journalist who became an Editor of The World newspaper, and his younger sister, Epainette Mbeki, one of the first women to join the Communist Party of South Africa, a stalwart community activist and promoter of women’s development, and mother to a future President of South Africa, Dr. Thabo Mbeki. Education His father’s primary school provided Moerane’s first elementary schooling