While jazz was not his first love, Vuma Levin says the musical genre played a pivotal role in his artistic life.
“Initially I was drawn to it (jazz) for its technical considerations, how it employs harmony, melody and rhythm in an improvised context.
“Later, I grew to love it because philosophically it came to embody much of what I believe to be beautiful and true about the human condition,” said Levin.
The 32-year old guitarist, composer and music instructor added to his list of accolades after recently bagging the coveted Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Jazz honours.
On winning this award, he explained: “It is a full-circle moment for me. My first experience with live jazz was watching the youth band at the Standard Bank Joy of Jazz when I was 17 years old.
“When I was in my final year at TUT (Tshwane University of Technology), I attended the Standard Bank National Youth Jazz Festival. On both occasions, I saw the young artists perform there and I hoped that one day I would be the one up there performing.
“So to finally have it happen, feels incredible and like a massive vindication of the importance of my work.”
He continued: “I’m sure it will also open up many opportunities for me to grow my art and compose, and perform more expansive works. I’m truly humbled.”
Levin has lived and worked in Madrid, Amsterdam, Basel and Johannesburg.
After teaching at various conservatoriums in the Netherlands, he returned to South Africa to take up a lecturing post at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he teaches guitar, ensemble and composition classes.
“The fundamental aim of my music is to explicate the post-apartheid South African self by referencing local and global musical traditions, methodologies and praxis from the past and present,” Levin said .
When asked whether music programmes for school-going children in South Africa were adequate to prepare our young people for music careers, Levin shared: “These programmes need skilled practitioners who also have training in teaching to design syllabi that on the one hand deal with indigenous kinds of music (traditional, urban syncretic and contemporary) and the other, engage with global practices.
“In this way, the student would be prepared for all contexts. In other words, teachers need to have at least some knowledge of what it takes to be a music professional in different streams of music-making and that should inform part of the development of syllabi.”
Speaking on the themes he tackles, the award-winning muso said: “In an age of unprecedented mobility, young black South Africans find themselves in a curious dual position.
“On the one hand, they are tied to the South African democratic national project and its related histories, power dynamics and identities.
“On the other hand, the world is becoming increasingly transnational, broadening cultural debates around national belonging, history, power and identity.
"The contradictions that emerge from this dual position have a profound impact on the existential concerns of people from the global South: Who are we? How do we form relationships? How do we love? Where do we belong?”
He added: “My music is an attempt to tease out and musically abstract upon these contradictions. In doing so it hopes to respond to the ‘single story’ told about Africa and its people, and to articulate the South African cultural narrative in the 21st century.
“By drawing on the rich harmonic palette of contemporary Jazz, the upbeat yet at times melancholic sounds of South African Nguni-Sotho song, the groove and accessibility of various strands of pop music and by exploring sound design via the use of traditional instruments such as the gourd bow and mbira, digital samples, loops and prepared instruments.
"I aim to explore new identities in the African diaspora, painting a musical portrait of South Africa that is at once contemporary yet intimately tied to multiple rich historical traditions.”
Levin draws his musical influences from a vast range of musical giants and bands, including Radiohead, Portishead, Morcheeba, Massive Attack, John Coltrane, Lage Lund, Jesse van Ruller, Martijn van Iterson, Reinier Baas, Ravel, Messiaen, Stravinsky, Nduduzo Makhathini, Afrika Mkhize, Marcus Wyatt, Neil Gonsalves, Carlo Mombelli and Madosini.
Levin admits he’s thrilled about his forthcoming fifth studio album titled “The Past is Unpredictable: Only the Future is Certain," which is dropping this summer.
“It is an orchestral project that I'm hoping will feature musicians from South Africa, the Netherlands and Switzerland,” he said.