My Johannesburg

4.25 (4)

My Johannesburg

1 performance between July 17, 2016 and July 17, 2016
Jazz & Literature
Vuyelwa Maluleke - Spoken word Artist • Christian Radovan - Composition, Arrangements & Trombone • Justin Bellairs - Alto Sax • Nduduzo Makhathini - Piano • Benjamin Jephta - Bass • Lukas Ligeti - Drums
120mins
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Based on the book by  Margit Niederhuber & Albie Sachs, 'My Johannesburg' is a collection of inspiring, true stories of South Africans on their journey from oppression to freedom. From high court judge Albie Sachs and writer Mandla Langa, to teachers, travel guides and Soweto’s first bicycle tour operator, the stories are brought to life with original music by Christian Radovan and wonderful reading by Vuyelwa Maluleke.
Christian Radovan is an Austrian musician, trombonist and composer whose range encompasses jazz, pop, blues, Latin, soul and world music. His career was greatly inspired by nine years spent in South Africa as a child. Jon Davies, the South African trombonist, mentored him and invited him to play with his band Okto Plus in the jazz clubs of Pretoria and Johannesburg. At age 16, Christian returned to Austria to study at the Vienna Conservatory. He was soon invited to join the legendary Vienna Art Orchestra and spent the next 17 years playing and touring the world with the VAO and other top musicians:Cecil Taylor, Carla Bley, Joe Zawinul, Abdullah Ibrahim, Wilhelm Breuker, Slide Hampton, Raul de Souza, Kenny Wheeler, Enrico Rava,Thomas Stanko, Rob McConnel, Bill Russo, George Lewis, Albert Mangelsdorff, Alegre Correa, Eumir Deodato, Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Chaka Kahn,The Temptations and Omara Portuondo.Today, he continues to play and tour internationally with a variety of ensembles while also composing. Since 1989 he has also been Senior Trombone Lecturer at the Bruckner University for Music in Linz, Austria.

Vuyelwa Maluleke, is a Joburg based Spoken Word Artist, Scriptwriter and Actor, with a BA in Dramatic Arts from the University of Witwatersrand. She was shortlisted for the Brunel University African Poetry in 2014, is the author of a chapbook ‘THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE’. The slam champion of the Word and Sound 2015 Poetry league competition. She describes herself explicitly as a storyteller, archiving, through her writing a personal experience of her blackness and womanness whilst navigating present day South Africa. Her writing serves as evidence that the black female body in South Africa is consistently being broken into in various spaces, that it can love and affirm itself is evidence of its ability to survive and want to survive.

Bassist and composer Benjamin Jephta has already made a name for himself as one of South Africa’s premier jazz double bass and electric bass players. After releasing his debut album ‘Homecoming’ earlier last year and being confirmed as one of the acts for the acclaimed Cape Town International Jazz festival this year, his debut album has been nominated in the ‘Best Urban Jazz Album’ category at this years 15th Metro Fm Music Awards among the crème of the crop of South African Jazz. 

Although Jephta grew up in Mitchell's Plain, it was when he attended Muizenberg High School that he fostered a love for jazz under the mentorship of his music teacher Fred Kuit (winner of the 2012 SAJE Lifetime Achievement Award in Jazz Education). Aside from performing in venues and festivals locally since the age of 15, Benjamin has also performed with various orchestras and small ensembles in Africa, Europe and Asia. A graduate of the jazz program at the prestigious South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town, he graduated in 2013 with the fourth year class medal. Jephta has performed with a range jazz musicians including McCoy Mrubata, Sibongile Khumalo, Paul Hanmer, Feya Faku, Jimmy Dludlu, Simphiwe Dana, Hugh Masekela, Marcus Wyatt, Kyle Shepherd and many others. He has also performed with South African artists such as Mi Casa, Cassper Nyovest, Tresor, Lira and many more. He is involved in various original projects ranging from playing double bass in a free jazz orchestra to synth-bass in a pop band. 

The Austrian-American composer and drummer/improvisor Lukas Ligeti divides his time between Southern California and South Africa. His highly original music draws upon Downtown New York experimentalism, contemporary classical music, jazz, and traditions from around the world. His compositions have been commissioned by Bang on a Can, Kronos Quartet, Ensemble Modern, the American Composers Orchestra, Colin Currie and Håkan Hardenberger, and others. He has performed with John Zorn, Gary Lucas, Marilyn Crispell, John Tchicai, Jon Rose, Henry Kaiser, Michael Manring, Jonas Hellborg, George Lewis, Tarek Atoui, Jonathan Crossley, etc., and has given solo electronics performances on 4 continents, including at the first Unyazi Festival in Johannesburg in 2005. A pioneer of experimental intercultural collaboration in Africa, he co-founded the ensemble Beta Foly in Abidjan, Côte d\'Ivoire in 1994; he later co-founded Burkina Electric, the first electronica band from Burkina Faso, which, among many other projects, will collaborate with the Mitteldeutsches Rundfunk-Orchester in Leipzig (Germany) in 2016. He is also active in sound art and created a sound installation for the Goethe Institute Rio de Janeiro on the occasion of the 2014 Soccer World Cup. In 2010, he received the CalArts Alpert Award in Music, one of the most important awards for artists in the US. Ligeti is completing a PhD at Wits (with Prof. Jeanne Zaidel-Rudolph) and serves on the board of New Music South Africa. After living in New York City for many years, he is, since 2015, Assistant Professor of Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology at the University of California, Irvine. www.lukasligeti.com

Nduduzo  Makhathini: Growing up in the small town uMgungundlovu near Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal, Makhathini was surrounded by music as a child. Coming from a very musical family – his mother was a pianist and his father a guitarist – he was exposed to a range of music including traditional Zulu music. He recalls turning the knob on the radio until it reached the end, where he would listen to Indian music. He was part of the choir at school and would sing at church, and until he was finished school, his voice was his instrument. It was only after High School that he started to study jazz piano.
 “I reached a point where my voice limited me from expressing the music, and that’s when I focused on the piano.”
He feels his career has developed in what he describes as an organic process, starting with his upbringing and the influence of his mother being his first piano teacher. “Over the years I have learnt that if you submit yourself to the music or whatever your dream is then mother-nature has a way of taking care of the rest”.
Nduduzo Makhathini has three albums out ‘Sketches of Tomorrow’ ‘Mother Tongue’ (nominated for best jazz at the SAMA’s 2015 and ‘Listening To The Ground’. He is also this year’s (2015) Standard Bank Young Artists For Jazz and 1st recipient of the British Academy Newton Advanced Fellowship Masters Scholarship.
Makhathini has played and recorded with Busi Mhlongo, Zim Ngqawana, Feya Faku, Jimmy Dludlu, Herbie Tsaoeli and many others. He has also produced albums for Lindiwe Maxolo, Sisa Sopazi, Mbuso Khoza and others.
Recently performed at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown 2015 and Standard Bank Joy of Jazz Festival 2015 in Johannesburg.

Justin Bellairs is a Cape Town-based jazz saxophonist, who has quickly become one of the most frequently-booked jazz musicians.
Justin graduated from the University of Cape Town with distinction in 2011, under the tutelage of the internationally-renowned saxophonist, Mike Rossi.
While at UCT, Justin was selected as an exchange student to study for a year abroad and attended the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, Norway, where he studied saxophone and improvisation with Morten Halle. He was also selected for the prestigious National Youth Jazz Band at the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival held in Grahamstown, which performed at the Joy of Jazz Festival in Johannesburg, and toured Sweden.
He has recorded-and-shared the stage with some of South Africa’s most distinguished musicians, including Feya Faku, Nduduzo Makhathini, Kyle Shepherd, Melanie Scholtz, Bokani Dyer, Darryl Andrews, Mike Campbell and Andrew Lilley. Justin also played on Shane Cooper’s SAMA award winning album, Oscillations, in 2013.
A highlight of his career was the opportunity to play at Carnegie Hall in New York in 2014. Justin toured internationally with drummer Kesivan Naidoo’s band, Kesivan and The Lights, becoming one of the youngest South African musicians to perform at the world-renowned concert hall. Internationally, Justin has also played in Norway, Sweden and Botswana and Mauritius.
Locally, Justin is a regular feature at all major jazz festivals, including Cape Town International Jazz Festival, Standard Bank Joy of Jazz and the Grahamstown National Arts Festival.

Audience Responses

super fivestar. I wil go again to Soweto show. Loved it Annelie

Annelie • Attended July 17, 2016, 7 p.m.

super fivestar. I wil go again to Soweto show. Loved it Annelie

Annelie • Attended July 17, 2016, 7 p.m.

fantastic thoroughly enjoyed

Tammi • Attended July 17, 2016, 7 p.m.
5.0

Great to have this level of "social music" as Miles Davis calls it. Please bring back Nduduzo Makhatini. He says he has loads of friends who live in CT whom he can play with. Justin Bellairs and Benjimin Japhta kicked bass ass too.