Vuma Levin, suggested the Mail & Guardian, “is destined to be one of South African Jazz’s greatest musicians”. Levin is a guitarist, composer and lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand and winner of this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Jazz. After music studies in Pretoria he graduated with a Master’s degree cum laude from the Amsterdam Conservatorium and was a semi-finalist at the Montreux Socar International Jazz Guitar competition in Switzerland. His music is centred on post-apartheid South African identity and of his latest album, “Antique Spoons”, Levin explains that, “The sounds I used on the album are really a mix of many different influences – contemporary jazz, as well as contemporary South African jazz”. It is this complex mix of influences that he ambitiously harnesses in his Makhanda Standard Bank Young Artist performances, combining a string quartet from Amsterdam, a trio of Swiss instrumentalists, a Dutch jazz quartet, and a well-known Dutch arranger and conductor, all interspersed with his guitar playing, and carefully laid out in his complex compositions.
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Vuma Levin (guitar)
Bernard van Rossum (sax – NL)
Xavi Torres Vicente (piano – ES)
Marco Zenini (bass – IT)
Jeroen Batterink (drums – NL)
Matthias Spillman (trumpet – CH)
Andreas Tschopp (trombone – CH)
Domenic Landolf (sax – CH)
Gustavo Cabrera (violin – NL)
Yanna Pelser (viola – NL)
George Dumitriu (viola – RO)
Pau Sola (cello – ES)
Tijn Wybenga (conductor – NL)