Wouter Kellerman: A life recomposed

Every industry has its preferred age for brilliance. In technology, if you haven’t founded a unicorn by 23, investors start looking over your shoulder for someone younger. In most sports, if you aren’t Novak Djokovic, the young guns will be braying for your blood as you fall from the podium before you turn 35. Even in music, if you want a record deal, you must be young, gorgeous and display your genius early, preferably accompanied by a penchant for skimpy clothing, poor judgement and a propensity for illicit habits.

Every year I allowed myself three weeks, which I spent travelling the world to study with leading flute teachers.

But three-time Grammy Award-winning South African flautist, producer, composer and philanthropist Wouter Kellerman bypassed all that, though I doubt after our long interview for this article that he ever would have gone in for the skimpy clothing.

Having had a successful career in engineering and being a single parent of two children, the Joburg-based melomaniac decided to start over, or, more correctly, fulfil the dream he always had to devote his life to music.

A few weeks ago, Kellerman received the Order of Ikhamanga in Gold, the prestigious South African national honour bestowed by the President on citizens who have demonstrated exceptional achievement in the arts, culture, literature, music, journalism and sport. As one of South Africa’s most internationally recognised musicians and a man whose collaborations stretch from India to Japan and from Carnegie Hall to the Fifa World Cup stage, the award was well deserved and, given his accomplishments, not hugely surprising. What is remarkable though, is how little time it’s taken him to come this far.

For decades, music wasn’t Kellerman’s profession. It was the thing he carried with him in parallel with his other life. He began playing the flute at 10 after attending a symphony concert with his family. “The instrument appealed to me for a simple reason: it used breath and I liked the idea of using my breath to create something beautiful,” he says. “It felt natural, like speaking or singing.” And, as an afterthought, he adds: “I thought it was cool that you hold it sideways.”

Kellerman had wanted to study music after school but, because the money wasn’t available, he was encouraged to pursue a degree for which he could get a bursary; something “serious” like engineering.

His excellent matric results ensured a bursary from Anglo American. “But that was only my third or fourth choice,” he admits. “My first love was music, my second was mathematics but I found myself studying electrical engineering instead.”

The decision launched a successful engineering career. He worked briefly in the mining industry before establishing his own software engineering company in Joburg. Along the way he got married, had two children, got divorced, became a single dad with the burden of school fees, parental responsibilities and the practical realities that fill afternoons with lifting kids to extramural activities — all of which have a way of interrupting artistic ambitions.

But the flute accompanied him through everything.

While still at university studying engineering, he performed as a soloist with the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra. Later, while running his company and raising two children, he continued practising in whatever hours remained after the business of the day had ended, the children had finished their homework, and the dishes were done.

Far from being the hero in a tortured prodigy story, Kellerman was determined, before following his passion, to put his daughter Nicky and son Ewoudt first. There were a few sporadic attempts to make music full time, but he realised that to do so would mean weeks in the studio, touring and time away from his primary duties as a father. “It didn’t work to be a musician and a single dad,” he says, adding that he never gave up on the idea, he just postponed it.

“Every year I allowed myself three weeks, which I spent travelling the world to study with leading flute teachers,” he says. “Sometimes, I brought those teachers to South Africa so local musicians could benefit too.”

When his kids had finished their studies, the opportunity to take his music seriously finally came. “Financial pressures had eased. The timing, after decades of waiting, was finally right.”

In 2005 and 2006, he walked away from his successful engineering business to pursue music full time, and many of the people closest to him thought he was crazy. “People assumed it was a midlife crisis but it was actually the fruition of the dream I’d had since adolescence,” he says. “I was never in any doubt that I was going to do it.”

But, despite appearances, success didn’t come overnight. Kellerman spent two years creating his debut album, Colour. Determined to achieve the highest possible standards, he tracked down Husky Höskulds, the Grammy-winning engineer behind Norah Jones’s multi-platinum breakthrough album Come Away With Me. “I really loved that album,” he says. “Especially the way it was engineered. So I wanted to get him to work on my album.”

What may have, at first, seemed a little audacious, worked out well for Kellerman. “I was a middle-aged South African flautist with a first album, asking one of the world’s most sought-after engineers to help me realise my dream.” Kellerman’s friend Johnny Clegg was on hand to make it happen. Clegg knew someone who knew someone who could get the album to Höskulds, and he agreed to help out. “I was so surprised when he said, ‘I think this music is amazing’. He even said that it’s already so well mixed that ‘I’m not sure I can do better’.” But Kellerman disagreed and flew to Los Angeles to spend 10 days working with him. He returned convinced that they’d created something special.

But the music industry had other thoughts. Major labels rejected the album. At one meeting, a record executive assured him they loved both him and the music, but when Kellerman looked down he saw the album unopened on the executive’s desk, still wrapped in plastic. “I wasn’t their idea of someone who would sell records,” he says.

Colour found an audience anyway. The album topped classical charts, received exceptional reviews and earned Kellerman his first South African Music Awards recognition. This early success opened a door that would lead beyond South Africa and Kellerman’s initial expectations.

Grammy-winning projects followed. Then came sold-out performances at Carnegie Hall, international tours and collaborations that transformed him into one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary instrumental music.

But what separates Kellerman from other crossover artists is his refusal to treat cultural exchange as branding. His most recent Grammy-winning album, Triveni, brought together South African, Indian and Japanese influences. The title refers to the meeting of three rivers, a metaphor for three musicians arriving from vastly different traditions and attempting to find common ground.

He says the process wasn’t always seamless and speaks openly about the challenges of blending musical systems that operate according to entirely different rules. Despite any difficulties though, his enthusiasm for cultural fusion is infectious. “The world is a huge mix,” he says. “And music becomes a form of conversation that exists beyond language.”

This belief extends beyond his performances and into mentorship. Kellerman supports vulnerable children through SOS Children’s Villages and funds educational initiatives. He’s spent more than 27 years contributing to underprivileged young people in South Africa. His role in the success of both the Ndlovu Youth Choir and Mzansi Youth Choir comes from the same instinct.

When he encountered the Ndlovu Youth Choir, he recognised extraordinary talent. He financed the recording and production of their viral version of Ed Sheeran’s Shape of You, helping to create the momentum that ultimately led them to America’s Got Talent and international recognition.

Listening to him describe those achievements, there’s absolutely none of the self-congratulation that sometimes accompanies stories of mentorship. In fact, he shies away from taking responsibility for it.

Instead, he speaks about privilege, insisting he learned more from the choir members than they learned from him.

Perhaps that humility explains why the Order of Ikhamanga means so much. For many artists, three Grammy Awards would represent the summit, but Kellerman sees things differently. “The Order of Ikhamanga in Gold is a lifelong highlight,” he says. “Partly because it recognises musical achievement. But also because it acknowledges contributions made away from stages and awards ceremonies.”

Recognition, after all, is sweetest when it arrives unexpectedly.

But for all the honours, Kellerman remains intriguingly restless. He still hasn’t done enough in his music career and he’s still chasing new experiences.

One of those is surprisingly ordinary. He wants a pop hit. The challenge fascinates him precisely because it’s something he hasn’t done yet.

His new collaborations include projects with Lira, Nigerian superstar Yemi Alade,a and the recently released single Golden alongside Daniel Baron and Cara Frew. The curiosity that once drove him to engineering laboratories and international flute masterclasses remains fully intact, suggesting that Kellerman’s story is actually more about delayed gratification than it is about music.

Our culture, obsessed with immediacy, expects success to arrive quickly or we give up. Reinvention is supposed to belong to the young, but Kellerman’s story is an inspiration to anyone who thinks it’s too late.

He patiently accumulated great skill, honed his craft, remained humble as he achieved great success and recognition — and became one of the finest musicians South Africa has ever produced.