Njabulo Phungula is a composer from Durban, South Africa. Drawing on his engagement with literature, film, the visual arts, his music documents the exploration of convoluted forms, inspired by the concepts of time, memory, gesture, and the creative process itself.

His works have been performed in South Africa, the USA, and throughout Europe, by performers such as Klangforum Wien, ensemble recherche, International Contemporary Ensemble, Kompass Ensemble, the JACK Quartet, Odeion String Quartet, PULSE, Mizar Trio, Christine Chapman, Marco Blaauw, Bronwen Clacherty, Stephanie Lamprea, Midori Samson, and Naomi Sullivan, among others. Along with Brydon Bolton, he also co-composed the music for Louis Coetzer’s work autoplay for Darkroom Contemporary Dance Theatre. He has received commissions and grants from NewMusicSA, the New Music Forum at Stellenbosch, JACK Studio, impuls, and the Goethe-Institut, and his works have been featured at festivals such as Unyazi Music Festival: Infrastructures (2016, Cape Town), and at the SASRIM Composers’ Meeting (2018, Durban), Deep Time (2023, Edinburgh), and ISCM World New Music Days (2023, South Africa), and impuls (2025, Graz).

He was a JACK Studio Artist from 2020-2022 and a Postcolonial Recherche Fellow (with ensemble recherche and the Goethe-Institut) from 2021-2022. He was named as a laureate of the impuls Composers Competition for 2025, received the 2023 Henri Lazarof International Commission Prize from Brandeis University, as well as the 1st prize at the inaugural SASF Composers Competition for his work Bound objects.

He holds a BA Hons degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal where he studied composition under the supervision of Jürgen Bräuninger, and later with Clare Loveday.