Staff Writer
South Africa based Zimbabwean guitar virtuoso — Max Vidima — will headline this year’s Zimbabwe Jazz Festival this month.
The Zimbabwe Jazz Festival 2023 will be staged in Harare and Bulawayo presented by the Zimbabwe Jazz Community Trust and the Alliance Francaise.
The Harare event offers a solid eight hours of great music from 2pm to 10pm, where Max Vidima will share the stage with seven other artists that include Victor Kunonga, Filbert Marova & Friends, Vera, Nicholar, Patrick Lupi, visitors Cool Crooners (from Bulawayo), and The Travellers Band (Gweru) – once hosted by Alliance Francaise de Harare at 328 Herbert Chitepo Avenue.
Maxwell Vidima is a Johannesburg based guitarist composer arranger and vocalist who has had a pleasure of working and recording with many local and international musicians.
Max has worked with Jimmy Dhludlu, Goldfish, Winston Mankunku, Silvia Mdunyelwa, Yvonne Chaka Chaka, Ezra Ncukana, Stompy Manana, Oliver Mtukudzi and Allou April amongst others.
A UCT graduate in jazz studies and musicology, Max has worked on several musical projects all over the world among them the Silvia Mudunyelwa exchange program in Bogota Colombia, the Lost in New York, and the Purbayan Chattegee project in Kolkata India to name a few.
Max has recorded three albums with Universal Africa namely Sagiya, Friends and Strangers and his latest Time and Changes.
Sagiya was nominated for the Metro Awards in 2005. Max is currently working as a touring musician as well as a music teacher in a programme called the Magnet in Johannesburg.
ZJCT Chairperson Robert Basvi, said: “Following the success of 2022, this year’s festival promises to leave an equally enduring flavour on the musical tastebuds of the Jazz- lovers we are welcoming. Running on a theme centred on ‘local flavour’, audiences can expect a mixed bag of local Jazz interpretations dished out by Zimbabwe’s various polished artists. We urge all Jazz-lovers to come and enjoy sweet home-brewed jazz which will certainly whet their Jazz appetite and leave them with an enjoyable, lingering local flavour playing on their minds.
The ZJCT is very grateful to the main sponsors that have remained consistent in sponsoring the annual Zimbabwe Jazz festival and these are the French Embassy, the Alliance Francaise Harare and Alliance Francaise Bulawayo”.
Other Sponsors who are also to be commended for supporting the art of jazz in Zimbabwe, are Total Energies, cfao, Utande, Fast Jet and Seed-Co.
About Author
