AZFA

Cultural exchange programme

The Kunzwana Trust has organised numerous festivals, tours and concerts in various parts of Zimbabwe:
May 1988: A festival of traditional music at the Murehwa Culture House, 90 km outside Harare where musicians from surrounding areas met for a day of musical celebration
September 1990 : An exhibition of Southern African Musical Instruments in conjunction with the Ethnomusicology Programme of the Zimbabwe College of Music and hosted by the French Cultural Services
October 1993: hosting of the Austrian Duo Attwenger and organising their Zimbabwe tour sharing the stage with Oliver Mutukudzi & The Black Spirits and with Black Umfolosi. This was the first collaboration with Austria-Zimbabwe Friendship Association
August/September 1994: The Houses of Stone Festival and Festival Trail which brought together musicians and Ethnomusicologists from many different parts of Africa and elsewhere in the world.

December 1995: hosting and organising of a music Safari of a group of artists and musicians from Linz (Georg Ritter, Peter Androsch, Rudi Pfann, Gotthard Wagner etal.), in due course first contact made with Tonga music in Siachilaba

February/March 1996: hosting of Wiener Tschuschenkapelle from Vienna on tour in Zimbabwe and Mocambique in collaboration with Ambuya Beauler Dyoko and Ghorwane

July 2002: hosting of Otto Lechner & Windhund from Vienna on tour to visit the Tonga area and attend Harare Jazz festival

The TONGA.ONLINE project in Binga district / Zimbabwe + Sinazongwe district / Zambia

For the Tonga people like me, there is something deeply biblical about the word MULONGA, yet it is a modern story too. One of massive but unshared technology. One of plentiful water but perpetual drought." (Dominic Muntanga)

Time's Up heading Down South

In April/May 2014 we will have a team of young artists from Time's Up in Linz on board travelling the Tonga area on both sides of the River. They are very much interested to explore Binga, Harare and Joburg for future artistic collaborations. This helps us to widen the scope of attention for Kunzwana and for Tonga and ZIM cultures here in Austria. It should feed perfectly into the Kunzwana endeavour to transform cultural heritage into some resource and search base for common ground and relevant art production of future generations.

Kunzwana # 1

"KUNZWANA comes from the Shona word nzw(an)a which means
‘listening, hearing and understanding one another’." - Keith Goddard

CONCEPT

Kunzwana # 1 is both a musical journey and cross-cultural collaboration featuring some outstanding and innovative Austrian musicians with their Zimbabwean counterparts.

As a kind of prelude the Austrian artists will visit the group Simonga in the village of Siachilaba in the Binga area along the Zambezi River. This encounter aims to recognise the traditional Ngoma Buntibe music as highly appreciated musical art form / Tonkunst of the Tonga people, and highlight it again as a source of inspiration. From there the Austrian artists will take some more impressions and ideas along on their journey to Harare.

At the Book Café in Harare the quartet from Austria will meet some outstanding and open-minded Zimbabwean musicians for an extensive exchange. They will retreat for an intense rehearsal phase with a focus on Mbira music and its derivative forms such as Chimurenga and Mbira-inspired contemporary music styles. Such dense and creative interaction will result in the formation of the cross-cultural Kunzwana # 1 ensemble, striking a balance between different styles and cultures and ready to excel in performances at the Book Café and Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA) 2014, and other venues in Southern Africa. Further joint performances at music festivals in Austria in July 2014 are already in the pipeline.

Zongwe FM: transmission improved

A team of AZFA delegates led by Peter Kuthan, AZFA Chair person, visited Sinazongwe in Zambia's Southern Province from the 20th to the 31st of July 2013 to render support to the Community Radio station Zongwe FM. The radio experts Marcus Diess and Mario Friedwagner installed a 500watt-transmitter, replacing the old one (with 100watt only). Zongwe FM’s transmission radius has now more than doubled the previous one in a bid to enhance a wider broadcasting coverage of the station at 105.0 MHz. They also dealt with all the faults in the studio in a bid to facelift it for a full operation and provided for some relevant training.