By Ano Shumba
Music in Africa
his year's International Marimba and Steelpan Festival will be held at St Dominic's Catholic School for Girls in Johannesburg on 28 and 29 July. The event, which joins Nelson Mandela's centenary celebrations, will feature 250 performances with about 2 000 young and old players competing to be crowned best marimba/steelpan band.
The festival, which is in its seventh edition, is divided into two: the main festival and a fringe programme comprising about 90 workshops in different music disciplines.
“The music education festival, curated by Education Africa, will bring about 80 institutions from all over southern Africa together to compete as well as share their love for music, and also learn from a series of competitions and workshops taking place simultaneously throughout the weekend,” the organisers said.
“We now have a large community of marimba players playing on a variety of marimba instruments throughout South Africa. Marimba playing has become very popular all over the world in the last century.”
Festival director Joan Lithgow told Music In Africa that the festival was designed to spread knowledge about the marimba and steelpan.
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