A Return to Essence, Tuning into the Modalities of Humanness

Pianist and scholar Nduduzo Makhathini has risen to prominence as one of the spiritual leaders of the new wave of South African talents, and has enjoyed a rapid international advance. In this new project, he combines his jazz trio with cello, voice, trumpet and harp. This work is an in-depth return to the core of existence (what he refers to as ‘ntu’) and an invocation of what we as the human race have forgotten. Although humanity is constantly haunted by violence and loss, Makhathini focuses primarily on forgiveness as a path to change. His instrumentation acts aims at a specific symbolism: the voice represents a call, strings (cello and double bass) symbolise a lament, the piano indexes diversity and the possibility to collaborate, the trumpet stands for a scream and an urgent call to action and the drums stand for the diviners and a renewed future. In this way Makhathini creates a versatile piece that combines musical ingenuity with expression. Music of and for our times.