‘The Drum Cultures of Chiweshe’ & ‘The Mbira/Sungura Guitar Styles of Zimbabwe’
has been officially launched by Music Crossroads Academy Zimbabwe. These were results of a culture preservation project funded by the German Embassy in Zimbabwe. In his speech at the launch, His Excellency, German Ambassador Thorstein Hutter, highlighted the great influence cultural heritage has upon cultural identity and how it helps to renew dialogue among members of different cultures.
The launch took place at the Zimbabwe German Society in Harare. The two booklets carry deep music and culture knowledge as one can learn from the one-to-one interviews done with different Zimbabwean musicians and cultural guardians or experts. The young musicians keen on tracing the background and interpretations of specific drum cultures of Chiweshe which lies within the Mazowe district, and the overall Mbira/Sungura guitar styles, will surely not put these knowledge-rich materials down once they start reading them.
Music Crossroads Academy in Zimbabwe and its German counterpart, the Global Music Academy, have been working together to help document some of the musical traditions in Zimbabwe with the idea of developing new curricula for the new professional training program of the Academy, in Harare. The launch was attended by various stakeholders in the Zimbabwean music, spoken word and cultural industry, as well as renowned writers such as Virginia Phiri and Chirikure Chirikure. Gurus in the music scene, Nicholas “Senior Lecturer” Zachariah, Clive”Mono” Mukundu and Donald Gogo, took part in the panel discussions where the audience was invited to pick their brains on the need to create purely Zimbabwean musical notations and indigenous methods of transcribing music.
In preparatory of the book, launch the guardian of cultures from Chiweshe were in camp at the Academy together with the Academy students a week earlier training them on all the drumming beats. It was a wonderful and exciting experience for the students, learning different drumming beats and dances as passed on by their ancestors.
In attendance at the launch was His Excellency, the South Korean Ambassador, Cho Jai Che, representatives from The British Council, The Spanish Embassy, University of Zimbabwe, Rotary International, Culture Fund, Zimbabwe College of Music, among others.
