The Centre for Jazz and Popular Music has been celebrating
Jazz Appreciation Month with a series of school visits to increase the
awareness of jazz as a fun way to make music, effective way to communicate, and
great way to make friends and get hip!
This activity will culminate in a free concert at the Durban
Botanic Gardens amphitheatre on May 1 which is a public holiday that marks
Worker’s Day.
The concert celebrates jazz in all its diversity and talented
young musicians in the jazz and popular music programme at the University of
KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). The concert will also feature ensembles and soloists from
the pool of talent encountered during school visits.
The headline act for the day is the UKZN Big Band which
features a programme that ranges from classic swing arrangements of Duke
Ellington and Count Basie, great arrangements of tunes by local jazz luminaries
such as Hugh Masekela and Ndiko Xaba, the funk music of Earth, Wind and Fire
and student arrangements of house music stars such as Micasa and Davido. The
concert will also feature the young talent in the Centre for Jazz’s smaller
jazz ensembles.
In an exciting development in its outreach events, Casio
Musical Instruments (SA) has come on board as a product sponsor in the
#15minuteChallenge where learners were invited to spontaneously create, and
experience music making through improvisation – as is often the case in jazz.
With just 15 minutes to check out all the features on the keyboard, learners
were encouraged to create dance tracks especially for the competition. The
winners of this competition will be announced and prizes will be awarded at the
event.
Patrons are encouraged to bring along their picnic baskets
as no refreshments will be on sale at the concert, no alcohol is allowed.
The concert will take place on May 1, 2018, at 14h00 and will
finish at 17h00 and in the event of rain the event will be moved to the hall at
the Botanic Gardens as a contingency plan.
For more information contact Thulile Zama at the Centre for
Jazz and Popular Music for enquiries on zamat1@ukzn.ac.za or 031 260 3385.
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