Shaped by the song-soaked struggle to liberate South Africa from Apartheid, composer, musician and philosopher Neo Muyanga radiates harmony. His schooling in classical European music and his deep affinity for South African folk music have granted him a rich musical palette. Neo uses his compositions to unsettle hegemonic power, employing unexpected song structures and chord changes in arrangements of traditional songs to show that the liberation story of history is not over: many dissonant melodies have been composed into our cultural arrangements, whose harmonic progressions remain unresolved. Neo is the sole composer of the 2025 opera How Anansi freed the stories of the world, and he has composed music for the British Royal Shakespeare Company and South-Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company.