Being the youngest Black woman to lead an orchestra is not enough for Ofentse Pitse. Her highlight so far: working with a full female orchestra for Netflix’s "Queen Charlotte."
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00:00 [MUSIC]
00:06 Ooh, nice.
00:07 [MUSIC]
00:14 Ofense Pitsi is a trailblazing South African woman
00:18 who is orchestrating her way to great success,
00:21 crowned by a composition fit for a queen.
00:24 [MUSIC]
00:27 My career highlight so far has been working with
00:31 a global orchestra of female players,
00:34 and then we're doing a reimagination of Alicia Keys'
00:37 "If I Ain't Got You" for a big Netflix global program
00:41 which is Queen Charlotte.
00:42 So, I mean, it was important because, again, Queen Charlotte,
00:45 and, again, the first black queen.
00:47 So it was very important for me to do not only musically,
00:50 but as a form of just reminding women of who we are,
00:53 which is we're all queens.
00:55 And not only is Ofense the first black woman to conduct
00:58 and own a classical orchestra and choir,
01:01 she's also the youngest person to do it.
01:03 And I started learning how to play the trumpet
01:06 when I was 12 years old,
01:07 and then that just evolved in my love for orchestra, choirs,
01:12 and then the evolution of that is me subsequently wanting
01:15 to start my own choir,
01:16 and then just putting some musicians together,
01:18 and then one day I just had a 19-piece orchestra
01:21 that I had to learn how to conduct.
01:23 [orchestra playing]
01:28 My journey began as a young girl growing up in Mawupani,
01:32 and then I was always taken to church,
01:33 so my mom would take me to all these church meetings
01:36 that she would have,
01:37 and then I just wanted to be one of the boys
01:39 'cause growing up in the Salvation Army,
01:41 you see a lot of brass bands and all that.
01:43 So one day I just saw a bunch of musicians,
01:45 and then that's when it hit me.
01:46 I was like, "Okay, there has to be someone
01:48 who's gonna conduct this."
01:49 But I'd never seen anyone who looks like me,
01:51 so I was like, "Okay, if it's just me
01:53 who's going to do this,
01:54 then I have to learn how to do it very well."
01:56 [speaking in French]
02:06 I mean, I would DM a lot of conductors
02:08 that I was following at the time, right?
02:10 So this is like Facebook, Instagram,
02:11 most of which said no to me,
02:13 and some did not even respond, right?
02:15 So it was Kerben Gruton,
02:17 who is the head of the UP Philharmonic Orchestra,
02:21 and he's also one of the best conductors in Africa.
02:24 So I just reached out to him.
02:25 I was like, "Listen, this is who I am.
02:27 This is my story.
02:28 Can you please teach me how you do this thing?"
02:30 And then I met him one day,
02:32 and then he has taught me everything that I know.
02:34 So I have a very great conducting mentor
02:36 who has taught me everything that I need to know.
02:38 A lot of choirs that we have here in South Africa
02:40 is just being-- it's called a hobby,
02:43 and for some of us, it's really difficult
02:46 because we've studied opera.
02:47 So if I get into a choir, they don't pay.
02:50 So Anchored Sound really opened doors for us
02:52 because we get paid very well.
02:54 Classical music and architecture
03:01 wouldn't usually make sense as disciplines
03:03 that strengthen each other,
03:04 except for this extraordinary mind.
03:06 Architecture is probably the only career
03:09 that requires you to break something apart
03:11 in order to put it together.
03:13 So there is an ounce of,
03:14 you have to constantly work in a space
03:18 that deconstructs before it constructs, right?
03:20 So in music, I look at my musical career
03:23 or my musical world like that,
03:24 where there's so many things
03:26 that are often not well put together, right?
03:28 And that's how I'm able to curate the music
03:31 that I'm able to curate,
03:32 because I look at it as it's not well put together.
03:35 So Offense joined us in 2017,
03:40 and Offense assisted us
03:42 with building two scale models of the building,
03:45 which we laser cut.
03:47 We have a laser cutter at our office space.
03:49 So she was part of that process
03:51 to kind of take this massive space
03:53 that we're standing in,
03:54 bring that down to a kind of tangible
03:57 and holdable size.
03:59 I stand out because I don't use the same principles
04:07 that they use in the classical music space.
04:10 So that allows me to have like a limitless mindset
04:13 and limitless like creativity,
04:15 because I'm not really doing what you learn in school.
04:18 So hence why I break all of these barriers,
04:21 because I always juxtapose the world of classical music
04:24 with various worlds, pop, hip hop, jazz.
04:28 So yeah, it really comes in handy
04:30 because I've learned this architecture
04:32 that allows you to break things apart
04:34 in order to put them together.
04:35 Offense BT has conducted a way
04:38 through the supreme disciplines of architecture
04:41 and classical music to enhance representation
04:45 and open doors for other Black women
04:47 in previously white male dominated spaces.