TWO SHOWS IN ONE NIGHT - 7PM & 9PM
Both shows sold separately.
Both shows will have 75 minute performances.
Fully seated, listening room style show.
General admission
The Alluvion World Music Series presents Ladysmith Black Mambazo - a South African male choral group singing in the local vocal styles of isicathamiya and mbube. Known internationally after singing with American Paul Simon on his album Graceland. They have since won multiple awards, including five Grammy Awards.
It is our great pleasure and honor to present this group. We are amazed that they will be coming to Traverse City and performing on our stage.
Doors open at 6:30 - Music at 7 - $30 advance tickets - $35 at the door
Doors open at 8:30 - Music at 9 - $30 advance tickets - $35 at the door
LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO
Over Sixty Years Later, The Impossible Dream Continues
Let us tell you a story. An impossible to believe, yet, true story.
Once upon a time there was a teenage boy working on his family farm in apartheid South Africa. The year was 1960. This boy loved to sing, in fact he loved to sing so much that he allowed himself an impossible dream.
In his dream he would create a group of singers, from his family members, to sing traditional South African songs. His group would perform all over South Africa and they would become the greatest music group his country would ever know. How could such a dream come to a young farm boy in a country rife with hardship, violence and trouble? Well, Joseph Shabalala was this young farm boy and his dream would become Ladysmith Black Mambazo.
The year 2025 marks the 65th anniversary of Joseph Shabalala forming Ladysmith Black Mambazo. His group would not only conquer all of South Africa, but would become a worldwide phenomenon, winning more GRAMMY Awards (Five), and receiving more GRAMMY Award nominations (Nineteen), than any World Music group in the history of recorded music.
During the dark years of South African Apartheid, Ladysmith Black Mambazo followed a path of peaceful protest through songs of hope and love. When Nelson Mandela was released from prison, in 1990, he said that Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s music was a powerful message of peace that he listened to while in jail. When Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1993, he asked the group to join him at the ceremony. It was Mandela who called Ladysmith Black Mambazo “South Africa’s Cultural Ambassadors to the World.”
The group sings a traditional music style called isicathamiya (Is-Cot-A-Mee-Ya), which developed in the mines of South Africa. It was there that black workers were taken to work far away from their homes and families. Poorly housed and paid, the mine workers would entertain themselves, after a six-day work week, by singing songs into the wee hours on Saturday night and Sunday. When the miners returned to their homes, this musical tradition returned with them.
In the mid-1980s, American singer/songwriter Paul Simon famously visited South Africa and incorporated the group's rich harmonies into his renowned Graceland album – a landmark recording considered seminal in introducing World Music to mainstream audiences. This brought the group to the attention of music lovers all over the world, the beginning of a global musical career that shows no sign of ending.
After leading his group for over fifty years and approaching his seventy-fifth birthday, Joseph Shabalala retired in 2014, handing the leadership to his three sons, Thulani, Sibongiseni and Thamsanqa Shabalala. Having joined their father’s group in 1993, their many years of training had prepared them in ways no others could be trained. Now, carrying their father’s dream into the future, the Shabalala Family continues the group’s success for the world to hear.
Ladysmith BlackMambazo is Thulani Shabalala, Sibongiseni Shabalala, Thamsanqa Shabalala, Msizi Shabalala, Albert Mazibuko, Abednego Mazibuko, Mfanafuthi Dlamini, PiusShezi and Sabelo Mthembu.
REMEMBERING FOUNDER JOSEPH SHABALALA
Joseph Shabalala, the bandleader who brought the South African vocal harmony group Ladysmith Black Mambazo to global success, has died aged 78.
Shabalala died in hospital in Pretoria and the news was confirmed by the group’s manager, Xolani Majozi. No cause of death has been announced.
“Our Founder, our Teacher and most importantly, our Father left us today for eternal peace,” the choir said on social media. “We celebrate and honour your kind heart and your extraordinary life. Through your music and the millions who you came in contact with, you shall live forever.” South African president Cyril Ramaphosa called him a “veteran choral maestro”.
Shabalala started singing as a teenager with the groups Durban Choir and the Highlanders, before forming Ezimnyama in 1959. He later christened it Ladysmith Black Mambazo – Ladysmith for his hometown, Black for the local livestock, and Mambazo, the Zulu word for axe, as a metaphor for the group’s sharpness.
Their exquisitely harmonised a cappella songs in Zulu became hugely popular in South Africa after the release of their debut album in 1973. The group’s members would go on to convert to Christianity and bring religious music into their repertoire.
They came to global attention after they collaborated with Paul Simon on his 1986 album Graceland, co-writing the song Homeless – its melody based on a Zulu wedding song – and singing the backing to Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.
Over the years, they also collaborated with Dolly Parton, Josh Groban, Emmylou Harris and more; the group appeared in the Michael Jackson film Moonwalker. In 1993, they accompanied Nelson Mandelato his Nobel peace prize ceremony in Oslo. Their theme for England’s 1995 Rugby World Cup campaign, a version of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, reached No 15 in the UK singles charts, and a 1998 best-of compilation album reached No 2.
Shabalala retired from Ladysmith Black Mambazo in 2014; four of his sons perform in the current lineup. The group have been nominated for 17 Grammy awards, winning five, most recently for best world music album in 2017.
In 2002, Shabalala’s wife, Nellie, a church pastor who had her own group, Women of Mambazo, was shot and killed in Durban. Joseph was injured in the attack as he pursued the gunman. Mboneni Mdunge was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The South African government shared its condolences to his family and paid tribute to him on Twitter, writing in Xhosa: “Ulale ngoxolo Tata ugqatso lwakho ulufezile” – “Rest in peace, father, your race is complete”. Former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba said Shabalala “will be remembered as a giant of South African music and a pioneer of the industry”.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party said in a statement that the group’s “music spoke to the social realities of black cultural norms and traditions, and was able to bring to light the social conditions of black South Africans”.
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