National Anthem of Rhodesia: Rise O Voices of Rhodesia

“Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia“ (or “Voices of Rhodesia“) was the national anthem of Rhodesia and Zimbabwe Rhodesia between 1974 and 1979. The tune was that of “Ode to Joy“, the Fourth Movement from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which had been adopted as the official European continental anthem by the Council of Europe in 1972 (it remains the European Union’s anthem today). The music used in Rhodesia was an original sixteen-bar arrangement by Captain Ken MacDonald, the bandmaster of the Rhodesian African Rifles. A national competition was organized by the government to find an appropriate set of lyrics to match the chosen tune, and won by Mary Bloom of Gwelo. In the fallout from Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965, the country still claimed loyalty to Queen Elizabeth II as its professed head of state, and so retained “God Save the Queen“ as its national anthem. With Rhodesia’s reconstitution in 1970 as a republic, however, the royal anthem was d