“Nowadays the traditions we lived by are dying and people are no longer telling stories and making music. I try my best to keep it all alive.” – Madosini

Any Given Sunday, in association with Straight No Chaser Jazz Club and the Institute for Creative Arts, hosts the legendary Madosini in a concert that offers the public an exceptional opportunity to experience musical treasures from ancient pasts. This Music in the City Concert, Bow Conversations, takes place on Saturday 23 July at Hiddingh Hall. The “queen of indigenous music”, as she is also known, is a unique access to an indigenous Southern African musical tradition that is all but extinct.

The iconic Xhosa composer, singer, story-teller and multi-instrumentalist shares some of her retro-futuristic compositions for uhadi (bow), umrhubhe (mouthbow) and isitolotolo (jaw harp) with Mpho Molikeng (Kudu horns, saxophone) and Nothembele ‘Vuma’ Maka (bows).

The event also features special guest cameos from multi-instrumental maverick Hilton Schilder (mouthbow, melodica), award-winning percussionist Dizu Plaatjies and Glen Ahrendse (mouthbow) in what promises to be a truly fascinating conversation at a place where bow roots and beat routes merge to create new improvisational conversations. Audiences with open ears can expect to transcend contemporary society’s entertainment impulse to achieve a cosmological state of inner-tainment through communion with the ancestors. 

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born Latozi Madosini Manqina in 1922 (according to her official identity document) in a village called Mqhekezweni outside Umtata in the Eastern Cape province, Madosini is a South African musician, known for playing traditional instruments such as the uhadi and mhrubhe musical bows, and the isitolotolo. She is regarded as ‘a national treasure’. Madosini speaks only isiXhosa and is unable to read or write. In 2008, Madosini performed at the WOMAD festival, and was the first person to be recorded and documented in the festival’s Musical Elders Archives project. In 2013 she was awarded the Arts & Culture Trust Lifetime Achievement Award for Music, with the support of the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), in recognition of her contribution to the country’s musical heritage.

[Photo: Madosini with her Uhadi bow; courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]

The performance will take place 17h30 for 18h00 on Saturday 23 July 2016 at Hiddingh Hall, UCT Hiddingh Campus, 31-37 Orange Street, Cape Town. A cash bar will be available from 17h30.  No booking is necessary and all are welcome.

For more information, contact the ICA office: +27 21 650 7156 or ica@uct.ac.za

Additional performances:

This Music in the City concert forms part of the Any Given Sunday series. Two additional performances will take place as follows:

  • Friday, 22 July: Moholo Live House, 42 Ncumo Road, Harare Square, Harare, Khayelitsha. 20:00. Tel. 073 940 1556 and
  • Sunday, 24 July: Straight No Chaser Jazz Club at The Drawing Room, 87 Station Road, Observatory. Sets at 18:30 and 20:00. Booking recommended. Tel. 076 679 2697

About ICA

The Institute for Creative Arts (ICA) is an interdisciplinary institute in the University of Cape Town’s Humanities Faculty – formerly the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts (GIPCA).  The ICA facilitates research projects in the creative and performing arts that disrupt boundaries, while underscoring creative education and practice across discipline and faculty. Interdisciplinarity, Live Art and Public Spheres are key themes of the Institute, and projects are imbued with innovation, collaboration and a dialogue with urbanism and community.

About Any Given Sunday

Any Given Sunday, curated by Riason Naidoo, Jay Pather and Richard Pithouse, is the Cape Town leg of Draft, a yearlong project anchored in nine interdisciplinary collaboratives—Beijing, Cairo, Cape Town, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and Zurich—which collectively consider contemporary art that produces, provokes and contributes to critical public debates.

Participating artists are Burning Museum, Hasan and Husain Essop, Gabrielle Goliath, Gerald Machona, Sethembile Msezane, Zanele Muholi, Koleka Putuma and Buhlebezwe Siwani. The Madosini concerts conclude the series of multidisciplinary artistic events comprising the public art project. For further information, please visit Facebook.

Start: 23 Jul ’16 5:30 pm

End: 23 Jul ’16 8:00 pm

Cost: Free

Category: 

Organizer: ICA

Phone: +27 21 650 7156

Email: ica@uct.ac.za

Venue: Hiddingh Hall

Phone: +27 21 650 7156

Address: Google Map UCT Hiddingh Campus, 31 Orange Street, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa