As South Africa marks her 21st anniversary of freedom and democracy, she also joins the world in celebration of the UNESCO-declared International Jazz Day on the 30th April 2015 and May 2015 as Africa Month.
The wRite associates, in partnership with the State Theatre and Music Academy of Gauteng, will present the International Jazz Day, a jazz concert comprising, music, dialogue, poetry readings/performances and the International Jazz Day Inaugural Annual Lecture. This programme, featuring the South African National Poet Laureate, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Johnny Mekoa, Menyatso Mathole, Lefifi Tlali, Sindiswa Seakhoa, Solace, Percy Mabandu, Natalia Molebatsi and Bongani Madondo, will bring under one roof communities, schools, artists, historians, academics, and jazz enthusiasts to celebrate and learn about jazz and its roots, future impact and mutual understanding.
“The programme will also focus on efforts to stop xenophobic attacks against our brothers and sisters from outside South Africa”, said Morakabe Seakhoa, Project Director of the International Jazz Day, Tshwane, South Africa, and Managing Director of the wRite associates.
“The freedom charter tells us that South Africa belongs to all who live in it. We also talk about Ubuntu, yet we do not embrace fellow Africans. The barbaric violence of xenophobia makes a mockery of everything we claim to value. It is time for every South African who can claim to have a conscience”, added the South Africa’s Poet Laureate, Keorapetse Kgositsile.
The International Jazz Day programme aims to celebrate, educate, promote intercultural exchange and the appreciation of jazz and each another as part of one human family in one world.
The programme is in line with the objectives of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) which, in November 2011, officially designated April 30 as International Jazz Day in order to highlight jazz and its diplomatic role of uniting people in all corners of the globe.
Keorapetse Kgositsile, Johnny Mekoa and Percy Mabandu will engage in a discussion on Jazz in literature (Documentation of Jazz venues, Stokvels as SMME’s and Biographies for preservation and posterity). Lefifi Tladi and Menyatso Mathole,from Acoustic Molapo Blues Poetry, will perform poetry and music.
Composer, guitarist and singer, Sindiswa Seakhoa will launch her afro-jazz debut album, “Tata”. Jazz singer Solace and poet Natalia Molebatsi will also perform.
“Following the proposed SA launch in April 2015 with other colleagues, such as Spin Foundation and others elsewhere in South Africa”, said Morakabe Seakhoa, Managing Director of the wRite associates, “the critical target is to host the International Jazz Day in South Africa in April 2016, with an agenda that sets a tradition of global participation and continental collaboration”.
This inaugural programme promises to grow annually, next year the programme will be bigger and will run for the whole of April as a Jazz Appreciation Month, comprising workshops, exhibitions, discussions and a festival of music.
Tickets are available at Computicket and at the door at the State Theatre at R100 each.
In Johannesburg, Sp!n Foundation in partnership with the Market Theatre will also host the International Jazz programme running from the 27th to the 30th April, featuring discussions, and Jazz performances.
For more information, please call: the wRite associates: 011 791 3585 or info@writeassociates.co.za or the State Theatre: 012 392 4275