Neo Muyanga

BIO

Neo Muyanga is a South African born artist and cultural activist. He is a composer of operas, pop songs and other musical inventions. He learned to sing choral songs as a child in Soweto and Botswana. His love for music saw him pursuing musical studies in Italy where he studied the Italian madrigal tradition with choral Italian maestro Piero Poclen. The time he spent with the choir molded his musical journey which saw him becoming a professional composer, musician and songwriter.

Neo has recorded a couple of albums namely 'Blk Sonshine (1999), 'The Listening Room' (2003), 'Fire Famine Plague and Earthquake' (2007), 'Good Life' (2009), 'Dipalo' (2011)

In the mid 1990’s, he co-founded an acoustic pop duo together with Masauko Chipembere. The duo garnered a large following throughout Southern Africa and other regions. In 2008, he co-founded a pan African space station with chimurenga’s publishing editor Ntone Edjabe as a host pan African music.

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER) and the University of California Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI) awarded him a composer in residence fellowship for 2015. Neo, also a member of various performance ensembles notably BLK Sonshine and KwaCha, travels in different countries for perfomances.