Mbira: Music of the Spirits of Zimbabwe

TACOMA, Wash. –   Two master players of the African mbira, a metal-keyed instrument used by the Shona people of Zimbabwe in sacred ceremonies, will be making a stop in Tacoma this fall.

Erica Azim and Fradreck Mujuru are on a national tour introducing audiences to the mbira, an instrument played for more than a thousand years in southern Africa but only made familiar to enthusiasts on other continents past six decades.

Mbira: Music of the Spirits of Zimbabwe will take place at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 16, at Kilworth Memorial Chapel, University of Puget Sound. The free concert is open to the public and is part of a two-day residency on campus by the musicians. Kilworth is on the corner of North 18th and North Warner streets. A map of the campus is below.

“The music of the mbira is not what many people here might think of as traditional African music,” said organizer Gwynne Kuhner Brown, associate professor of music history and music theory at Puget Sound. “It has the complex rhythms we expect, but also beautiful harmonies and the unfamiliar sound of the instrument’s vibrating metal keys.”

At the concert, Azim and Mujuru will play interlocking parts on their two mbiras—instruments with 22 to 28 metal keys mounted on a hardwood soundboard that sits inside a large gourd resonator. The two musicians also will sing.

Attendees will learn about the Shona people of southern Africa's ancient culture and the role the mbira plays in religious ceremonies and social gatherings, such as weddings and the celebration of official holidays. In Shona traditional religion, all-night ceremonies are held in which the instrument is thought to aid people in communicating with ancestral spirits by putting tribal members in a trance. A musical repertoire of hundreds of pieces has been passed on from generation to generation.

“I have been playing the mbira for 10 years—Erica was my first teacher,” Brown said. “She is a tireless advocate and teacher of this music in the United States, and has worked hard for many years to champion and support the musicians and instrument makers in Zimbabwe who are keeping this tradition alive.”

Erica Azim is a Californian who fell in love with Shona mbira music when she first heard it at the age of 16. After studying Shona music with Abraham Dumisani Maraire at the University of Washington for two years, she decided to learn to play the ancient Shona mbira used in ceremonies. She began learning the instrument by ear, and in 1974 traveled to Zimbabwe to study with traditional mbira masters. Azim is director of MBIRA, a nonprofit dedicated to sustaining Zimbabwe's ancient musical traditions through supporting musicians, producing recordings and giving public performances, and creating the world’s largest archive of Shona mbira music.

Fradreck Mujuru, the grandson of the Shona people’s legendary Muchatera Mujuru, grew up in Zimbabwe's largest extended family of mbira players. He began to play at the age of eight and later learned to build mbiras, which he today sells worldwide. Mujuru, a highly respected expert on the mbira, has toured Europe, South Africa, and the United States. He has been a resident at Grinnell College, Williams College, University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wellesley College, and Tufts University.

Funding for the performance is provided by the Catharine Gould Chism Fund for the Humanities and the Arts, a resource endowed by Seattle businesswoman Catharine Gould Chism.

For directions and a map of the campus: pugetsound.edu/directions 
For accessibility information, please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.3931, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility.

Press photos of Erica Azim and Fradreck Mujuru can be downloaded from pugetsound.edu/pressphotos.
Photos on page: From top right: Erica and Fradreck Mujura; a mbira close-up

Tweet this: Not your regular Zimbabwe music…hear the #mbira concert @univpugetsound.edu Wed Nov 16 Free #Tacoma http://bit.ly/2euco8v

Follow us on Twitter! twitter.com/univpugetsound