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While in 2011 Lira joined forces with jazz crooners Dudu Manhenga, Selmor Mtukudzi, Victor Kunonga, The Cool Crooners among others at the inaugural Jazz Festival dubbed “Jazz under the Stars Concert”, this time around she is expected to exchange notes with Alexio and Prudence Katomeni-Mbofana.
However, the spotlight will be on Lira and Chiwoniso given the two artistes’ international status.
Lira is a seven times South African Music Award winner and has been making waves since her debut in 2003. She is still riding on the success of her latest album “Return to Love” that was released in January 2011.
The album drew together everything that Lira has worked for from the time she emerged on the music scene. Other albums in her name include “Soul in Mind”, “Feel Good” and “All My Love”. “Live in Concert”, a celebration DVD of tours in different parts of the world, has also become a hit.
The name “Lira” translates to “love” in Sesotho and she refers to her music as a fusion of soul, funk and elements of jazz and Africa.
It remains to be seen if her golden voice will live up to the billing like she has done before. On the other hand, Chiwoniso Maraire, born in 1976, is an accomplished singer, songwriter, and exponent of Zimbabwean mbira music.
She spent the first seven years of her life away from her homeland Zimbabwe as her father moved the family to Washington in the US in the year 1970 to pursue a degree in Ethnomusicology. Chiwoniso has been fronting her band the Vibe Culture for several years.
From 2001 to 2004, she was also a core member of the multinational all-women band Women’s Voice, whose original members hailed from Norway, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, America, Israel and Algeria. Chiwoniso has also been busy in film, having worked on the soundtracks for movies and documentaries by an array of Zimbabwean writers and film producers in the last 10 years.
In February 2006, she joined Busi Ncube, Adam Chisvo, Peter “Mashasha” Mujuru and many others Zimbabwean artistes in an ad-hoc band called The Collaboration and recorded “Hupenyu Kumusha, Life at Home, Impilo Ekhaya”.
The band performed in Zanzibar’’ Sauti za Busara 2007 Festival.
Since then she has been actively involved in similar activities and she has also toured the globe extensively playing her music, which has a unique blend of contemporary and traditional beat because of her fusion of mbira and guitars.
Online Reporter