There is a unique opportunity to listen to three types of music from Zimbabwe in concert at the Lopez Community Center for the Arts on Friday May 30 at 7:30 p.m. This concert will include acapella vocal music, marimba and traditional mbira music.
Musekiwa
Guest artist Musekiwa Chingodza, from Zimbabwe, is touring North America in 2014, and is playing his third engagement on Lopez. Musekiwa was born in 1970 into a family of great mbira players in Murewa, Zimbabwe. He began playing mbira at the age of five. The mbira is a traditional Zimbabwean instrument with fifteen to twenty-eight metal keys and a wooden sound board. Musekiwa is also an excellent singer, dancer, drummer and marimba arranger.
He says “Our music is both medicine and food, as mbira has the power to heal and to provide for people.”
Katura Marimba
Katura Marimba, with players from both San Juan Island and Lopez, has its roots in Margie Smith’s 22 years of experience as a marimba performer, teacher, and instrument builder. Margie has taught many of the band’s members how to play marimba, informed by her background as a music major, with piano as her main instrument. When asked what caught her passion about marimba music from Zimbabwe she answers that this music is a positive and fun way for a group to play music together. A full consort of the wooden keyed marimbas includes three sopranos, two tenors, and the larger baritone and bass instruments, as well as hosho, or hand held gourd rattles. Margie has built marimbas, and taught how to build instruments, throughout the Pacific Northwest, and in Alaska and Hawaii.
Mamatamba
Mamatamba, in the Shona language of Zimbabwe, means Mother sing, play and dance. The Lopez group Mamatamba sings acappella style, featuring the rich harmonies of the Ndeble or kwaZulu people, like Ladysmith Black Mambazo; and the rhythmically complex, call and response Shona singing style.
Tickets in advance are $12 adults, $6 youth, family $25, and will be sold at PSR, Blossom Organic Grocery, Lopez Bookshop, and online at lopezcenter.org. Tickets at the door will cost adult $15, youth $8, family $33.
