Phillip Kakaza African music
The sound of a marimba drifts out of Guguletu’s St Gabriel’s church in Cape Town where Ayanda Hollow, a budding musician, is conducting music lessons.
The tinkling sound is just a hint of what is happening behind the concrete walls. Hollow’s vision of a vibrant mobile school of African music has become a reality. It was at the altar, it seemed, that Ayanda Hollow Music Productions (AHMP) got baptised.
Composed of three projects, AHMP offers marimba lessons to youth clubs and schools around the Western Cape. The company also conducts weekend courses in indigenous instrument making. A fairly new wing of the company is the Ayanda Hollow and Friends five-piece marimba band – one of the first African music bands to encroach on Cape Town’s trendy restuarants. From gig to gig, they’ve made contacts and deals. Last year they toured France and later this month they will jet off to Singapore to perform and conduct music workshops. In June, the band will be featured at the South African evening concert that will grace the opening of the World Cup in France.
Also in the pipeline is the release of their first album No One Will Sing When We Die, which is likely to be on the shelves at the end of May.
Hollow attributes the success of the band to its members, “It is the big five that has made the release of the CD a success. For a couple of years we have been working on the compositions and our success meant hard work and a lot of dedication.”
The album features contemporary traditional songs with an influence of Cape Town’s jazzy sounds. One of the tracks, Ndlangamandla, is dedicated to Vuyani Dlangamandla, a marimba maestro and music teacher who introduced marimba culture to the Western Cape.
AHMP has carried on and pulled more interest, mostly among white communities, in marimba music.
Close to Hollow’s heart is the band. “As much as I enjoy teaching I’ve realised that we are ambassadors of South African music, so it was essential to include performers in the company,” he says.
Only four years in the business, Hollow started toying with the idea of AHMP in 1994. Operating from his backyard shack in Nyanga, he embarked on the project and managed to get it off the ground by himself.
While being trained to play marimbas in charmingly tatty venues, he was eager to quickly grasp the artistic and technical skills and venture out of the townships.
“There have always been a lack of support and venues in the townships and too many complaints from struggling artists. I felt it was going to take too long for me to grow in such an environment, so I had to get out,” says Hollow.
His idea of a mobile music school came with a motive: “to take the music to where the people are.”
It is this approach that has taken AHMP to daring heights. The company started small, with Hollow giving marimba lessons in private schools and youth clubs. The demand for his services required him to train four township-based musicians to become teachers. In two years AHMP grew tremendously and has employed 14
musicians as music teachers and instrument makers.
Hopefully AHMP will first enjoy their fame at home as they are already making their mark internationally.
Ayanda Hollow and Friends perform at Mama Africa, Long Street, Cape Town, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 8pm