Nduduzo Makhathini

In the organizer's words:

With the composer, pianist, teacher and healer Nduduzo Makhathini, one of the most exciting live artists on the international jazz scene is coming to HKW for a concert. Born into a musical family in uMgungundlovu near Pietermaritzburg as the son of a singer and pianist and a guitarist, he received his first musical training at home and his second in the school and church choir. He later studied music at the Durban Institute of Technology. Since 2006, he has played in various bands and quickly gained recognition as one of the leading voices in South African jazz - at the latest since his album Ikhambi won Best Jazz Album at the South African Music Awards in 2018. The album Modes of Communication: Letters From The Underworlds, released on Blue Note in 2020 and hailed by the New York Times as one of the best jazz albums of the year, helped him achieve a worldwide breakthrough.

Makhathini's compositions and improvisations, his piano playing and his chanting are deeply rooted in Zulu traditions. He is a teacher and a healer who seeks and establishes a connection to the ancestors and to creation in his concerts. His three-movement suite uNomkhubulwane is dedicated to the daughter of God of the same name, who stands for prosperity and fertility, but also for balance and equilibrium. Here, prosperity is not at the expense of others - a very important principle in Zulu philosophy.

Makhathini is both an archivist and a visionary: he abandons himself to his improvisations like a healing ceremony and uses the piano like an oracle that illuminates the past and looks into the future through the present. Uhuru Phalafala from Stellenbosch University describes it this way: "The pianist and sangoma Nduduzo Makhathini regards his piano as an ivory oracle bone. His piano playing involves complete surrender to the unknown in order to access alternative forms of knowledge and communication... By dissecting his piano into oracle bones, Makhathini interrogates the ancestors' forms of communication and expression and transfers them to his piano." (from: Home Is Where the Music Is, Chimurenganyana, 2021)

As head of the Department of Music at Fort Hare University, Makhathini is also a renowned musicologist, and he frequently speaks out politically, whether in the lecture hall or on the concert stage. International collaborations have brought him together with Wynton Marsalis, Shabaka Hutchings, Hamilton de Holanda, Black Coffee and other musicians. In 2025, he was awarded the German Jazz Award as "Live Act of the Year International". At HKW's Miriam Makeba Auditorium, he plays in a trio with Lukmil Perez on drums and Dalisu Ndlazi on double bass.

Price information:

24/20€