Call extended – apply for instrument building workshops in SA

27 avr 2020 - 19:36

The Music In Africa Foundation (MIAF) has revised the dates of its 2020 Instrument Building and Repair (IBR) project in South Africa, due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. IBR will now take place from 19 to 24 September and will culminate in a concert at Wits Theatre in Johannesburg on 25 September.

Multi-instrumentalist and instrument maker Joe Makhanza will facilitate the kamale ngoni workshop this September.

To accommodate the change of dates, the Foundation has extended the application deadline for participation to 6 July 2020. A total of 20 participants will be selected for this year's three workshops that make up the IBR programme. Certificates of participation will be given at the end of the workshops, and participants will be able to leave the workshops with the professional instruments made during the training.

The training is aimed at professionalising indigenous instrument making and enabling instrument makers to train other instrument makers in their respective communities.

View the call for applications here.

The MIAF has also announced that multi-instrumentalist and instrument maker Joe Makhanza will facilitate one of the workshops on the building of the kamale ngoni instrument. Kamale ngoni is a kora-like, stringed instrument that originated in West Africa. The instrument contributed to the rise of Wassoulou music in the 1970s and 1990s.

Makhanza was born in Giyani in South Africa's Limpopo province. He completed a bachelor of music degree and a post-graduate diploma in arts marketing from Wits University. He is currently completing his masters in ethnomusicology and is a part-time lecturer in African music studies at Rhodes University. He plays the kora, mbira, valiha, masenqo, xiwewe, ngoni ba and xizambi, among others. He also manufactures the aforementioned instruments.

In 2011 and 2019 he went to Mali and Senegal as part of his own ethnographic research, to learn how to play djeli ngoni and the tambin flute. He has worked with Concord Nkabinde, Bokani Dyer, Tlale Makhene, Bheki Khoza, Aly Keita and Louis Mhlanga, to name a few.

The MIAF will confirm more trainers who will join the workshops as well as the other two instruments that will be featured in the 2020 IBR programme.

For more information, email Violet Maila at violet@musicinafrica.net.

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The Music In Africa Instrument Building and Repair project is funded by the National Lotteries Commission. It is implemented in partnership with Siemens Stiftung, Goethe-Institut, Wits Theatre and Kaya FM.