Palestinian musician sings for Zim

Tafadzwa Zimoyo Senior Arts Reporter
Visiting Palestinian musician Miral Ayyad has said Zimbabwe’s hospitality will inspire her to reflect the true story about the country in a collaboration with a local musician.

Ayyad, who is in the country for a musical project with local musician Abraham Matuka, is set to do a studio recording of the compilation song, “Lovely Zimbabwe”.

The song was written by Matuka with the aim of marketing Zimbabwe with various foreign artistes who will sing the song in their languages.

The visiting musician will add her voice after Penny Peng (China), Varsha Patel (Indonesia), Harry Sukristano ( Malaysia), Carol Zengeya (Angola), Manez Bandeira (D.R.C), Pitshou Lumiere (D.R.C) and Miam Sohali from Pakistan have already recorded their parts.

In an interview Ayyad, said she was happy to visit Zimbabwe for the first time and to be part of this project.

“It is good to be here and I love the weather and the loving people. I am happy to be adding my voice on this musical project whereby I will be signing, praising Zimbabwe in our own language. This is my first time here courtesy of Palestine embassy and hope my visit would be fruitful.

“I am looking forward to visit some of the popular tourist attractions,” she said.

Ayyad who is famous in her country for playing the qunan is expected also to tour the Balancing Rocks and Chinhoyi Caves before shooting her part of the video in one of the selected locations.

Palestine ambassador to Zimbabwe, Taghrid Senouar thanked Matuka for inviting Ayyad to come on board for the project as this will strengthen relations between the two countries through art.

“She is here and we are excited that our country is also being represented in this project. She comes from Jerusalem, the capital city of Palestine. We processed her papers and she will join Matuka in the projects,” she said.

Matuka added that the project is expected to end this month with a Japanese musician expected to jet in before the launch of the musical video and song scheduled for May.