Jazz musician Vuma Levin launched his 2 nd album in an international tour during May-June 2017. The guitarist performed with saxophonist Bernard van Rossum for Stellenbosch audience for free at GUS on the evening 11 th May 2017.

The event was supported by Africa Open institute and South
African/Norwegian Concerts SA initiative. It served as an opportunity to explore the possibilities of establishing a jazz club in Stellenbosch, turning the gallery into a multi-disciplinary venue for both live music and visual art.

About Vuma Levin: "destined to be one of South African jazz’s greatest musicians "; - Sihle Mthembu, M&G Vuma Ian Levin is a multi-award South African guitarist who for the past 7 years was based in Amsterdam. In 2017 Levin relocated back to Johannesburg to take up a lecturing position at WITS University.

Selected prizes and festivals: Top 8 Montreux International Jazz
festival guitar competition *Dutch Jazz Competition (publieks prijs) *Keep an international jazz awards * North Sea Round Town Jazz
Festival * The Montreux International Jazz Festival * The
Grahamstown Jazz Festival www.vumalevin.com

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Life and Death on the Otherside of the Dream

 

About the album:
Life and Death on the Otherside of the Dream is, on the one hand, a personal reflection on the last 7 years that Levin spent in ‘self-
imposed exile’ the Netherlands, thinking through issues of race,
nation, gender, power and being. On the other hand it is broader
reflection on the existential contradictions and crises facing the Post-Apartheid Self.
The music is hybrid, fusing, contemporary jazz, rock, hip hop,
pop, nguni-sotho choral and gourd bow song, Ghoema, Marabi and a variety of other urban black syncretic forms that arose out of the African experience of Apartheid.