Madosini Bow Conversations

Any Given Sunday and Straight No Chaser Jazz Club, with support of the Heinrich Boell Foundation and others, hosts the legendary Madosini in a concert that offers the public an exceptional opportunity to experience musical treasures from ancient pasts. 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 identity document) in a village called Mqhekezweni outside Umtata in the Eastern Cape, 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.

Performances:

· Friday, 22 July: Moholo Live House, 42 Ncumo Road, Harare Square, Harare, Khayelitsha. 20h00. Tel: 073 940 1556

· Saturday, 23 July: Institute for Creative Arts (ICA, formerly GIPCA) - 2nd floor Hiddingh Hall, UCT Hiddingh campus 31-37 Orange Street, Gardens.17h30 for 18h00. Tel: 021 650 7156 ica@uct.ac.za

· Sunday, 24 July: Straight No Chaser Jazz Club at The Drawing Room, 87 Station Road, Observatory. Sets at 18h30 and 20h00. Booking recommended. Tel: 076 679 2697

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 in Any Given Sunday 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 Cape Town based public art project. For more information visit their Facebook page here.