We took this additional step to ensure that the information in the first documentary is actually sufficient for anyone to build a matepe on their own, and to supplement the material if necessary.

Furthermore, we have expanded Sekuru’s personal biography with some videos about his contemporaries and playing partners in his younger years, geographical information, and his musical journey.

If you have read Chaka Chawasarira’s biography, you know the suspicion and rejection he faced when he introduced drums and the mbira into the Catholic church service. At least for the former, he recently received an award.

Now I wonder if he will still receive recognition in his lifetime for the Catholic mass he composed for the 19-key karimba.

Unfortunately Kenyan DJ Alai K / Disco Vumbi broke his leg and won’t be able to support them. Instead, we’ll have spoken word artist Jumọke and possible another surprise guest!

Next occasion to see TIR live will be on Friday June 21st 19:30 at Grassi Museum Leipzig. The day before (20th, 19:00) Mangoma will be giving a workshop on Zimbabwean Mbira at the museum.

Flyer Artwork: Kuda Samora Nyaruwabvu

35 hours of sawing, drilling, rasping, cutting, hammering, filing, carving, gluing, grinding, bending, burning, close listening, and explaining – with some fine conversation along the way.

Cutting all the raw material was a gargantuan task, all done by the one and only Kuda Samora Nyaruwabvu. Plus some sound editing of mine so that one might still understand what Sekuru says while hammering on his anvil.

This milestone marks the completion of what we originally set out to do and agreed with our funding partner. What’s yet to come is the “Matepe Clinic” (Samora builds another matepe and Sekuru helps with problems), and a few very interesting bonus videos, e.g. one with James Kamwaza.

It would be nice to cut the material together again into a “minimal version” that contains all the important explanations and work steps, but as few redundancies as possible. Feel free to send us the video number, starting times and durations of sections that you think could be skipped.

With the exception of Paul Berliner and Cosmas Magaya’s opus magmum Mbira’s Restless Dance, this is the largest effort that I know of to document a mbira tradition. Unlike an academic publication, our focus is on cultural preservation. The primary target audience is Zimbabweans locally and in the diaspora.

We are currently working on the second milestone – a tutorial for for building matepe – which will be available in a few weeks.

Tonight there will be a big presentation concert at the Zimbabwe German Society in Harare with many illustrious participants.

Here is an article from NewsDay Zimbabwe:

Chaka Chawasarira, Forward Kwenda, Jacob Mafuleni, Hope Masike, Othnell ‘Mangoma’ Moyo, Taffie Matiure, Nancy Nasibo Mutize, Mary Anibal, Leo Batuki and Abel Mafuleni.

Thanks Katrin Simon and Mangoma for the pictures and organisation!

We’ve started with Kuvachenjedza and Marume azere dare, plus a page about drumming and clapping. Many more will follow in the next few days.

Kuda Samora Nyaruwabvu cut and edited all videos, after which I optimised the audio to make them sound as good as possible on mobile phones.

All material is accessible free of charge. All you have to do is register on the site – because I want users to accept the Terms of Use and not just any web crawler to copy the materials.

Even if you are already subscribed to new posts, you still need to create an account because I had to completely overhaul the site’s user management.

Please leave a comment and share your first impressions!

While following the ceremony I was organising some videos of casual conversations that we had recorded during our project, and came across this one:

Video recorded by @samora.

Chaka Chawasarira comments on the transcriptions Tracey made in 1970 by Chawasarira’s friend, playing partner and teacher Matias Chidavaenzi. Mangoma plays him the pieces, generated using a suitable tuning on symres.org, where the transcriptions are freely accessible.

I’m sure this video would have delighted Andrew! Not only does it show the long journey his work has come since then, but it is also a testament to the care with which it was created (plus that of Zack Moon, who edited most of the pieces online).

See also:

• Diane Thram’s wonderful obituary for Andrew
• A few memories of mine

On the German side, Transatlantic Impulse Response will soon take the stage – a collaboration between our team member Othnell “Mangoma” Moyo and Fabiano “K’boko” Lima, a Brazilian-German artist based in Berlin.

First rehearsals were in October 2023. Here is a compilation of mobile phone clips from their very first session:

About Transatlantic Impulse Response

A unique Zimbabwean + Brazilian/German collaboration featuring the Matepe mbira, roots drumming from the deep traditions from both sides of the ocean, Afro-futurist electronic beats, and a combination of all these.

Besides being performing musicians, Othnell “Mangoma” Moyo from Harare, and Fabiano “K’boko” Lima from Berlin/Recife are ethnomusicological researchers, multi-instrumentalists, teachers and ambassadors of the rich musical traditions of their native countries.

For this reason they have been invited to participate in the cultural preservation project Matepe 21st, conducted by symres.org and the German Embassy Harare, which spawned that collaboration.

The matepe is arguably the most sophisticated lamellophone on the African continent, unmatched in sonic complexity and playing technique – imagine a huge 3-octave kalimba with mysterious basses and tuned overtones.

Unfortunately there are only very few remaining master musicians of this instrument, and Mangoma – likely Zimbabwe’s most prolific and internationally renowned percussionist – dedicated himself to becoming one of them, and take this unique tradition into the current generation.

Together with his musical sensitivity and deep understanding of [colonial] history and traditional spirituality, this is an indispensable prerequisite for approaching the musical heritage of the Matepe from the technological side, effectively making “electronic” Berlin the third coordinate of a triangle with Harare and Recife.

K’boko’s mission is to integrate the musical essence of the traditions he grew up with into contemporary electronic styles without degenerating them to “ethno loops” – mere exotistic decoration.

Music

Here are two tracks currently in the making, to become part of the stage performance:

More about Mangoma

Mangoma’s website »

Here are two of Mangoma’s recent solo performances, showcasing a number of Zimbabwean traditional instruments. See the video descriptions on Youtube for more details.

More about K’boko

K’boko´s website »

K’boko on Bandcamp »

Katrin Simon of the German Embassy had arranged this event with academy director Melody Zambuko already at our dinner in June.

The class received a great response. When asked who wanted to continue with Matepe, about 15 students raised their hands. Katrin already came up with ideas how to turn this into a regular activity.

_{(Pictures & Videos courtesy Katrin Simon & Mekody Zambuko. Find more pictures on Crossroads’ Facebook post.)}

Update: The event even received a bit of media attention: