’The Long Road’, for Nelson Mandela by Wouter Kellerman

I wrote this song for Nelson Mandela, painting his life with the colours of the flute. It starts with him growing up in his rural Transkei, where he was very close to nature and spent some time herding cattle. When I was writing this song, I was thinking of him sitting by his cattle, listening to the beautiful sounds of nature, which even then must have been tinged with a touch of sadness, showing what was to come in his life. In the next section he moves to the city and the peacefulness of nature makes