{"id":236958,"date":"2022-09-13T11:47:24","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T09:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/ubuntu-is-alive-and-it-sounds-like-marimbas\/"},"modified":"2022-09-13T11:47:24","modified_gmt":"2022-09-13T09:47:24","slug":"ubuntu-is-alive-and-it-sounds-like-marimbas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/ubuntu-is-alive-and-it-sounds-like-marimbas\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cUbuntu is alive\u201d and it sounds like marimbas"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bheka Mabika, a 17-year-old student, performing at the Marimba Jam Festival at the Joseph Stone Auditorium in Athlone on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Joseph Stone Auditorium in Athlone was humming with hundreds of young students and a jubilant audience, enjoying the annual Marimba Jam Festival.<\/p>\n

Original covers of iconic songs such as \u2018Welcome to Cape Town\u2019 and \u2018Jabulani\u2019 were featured. And there were not only marimbas, but drums, guitar, violin, flute and the Ubuntu Choir.<\/p>\n

The festival features hundreds of students between grades 4 and 12 from 18 schools.<\/p>\n

Organised by Marimba Jam, the festival\u2019s aim is to promote \u201csocial cohesion and nation building\u201d among young people, and to raise funds for its \u201crising star\u201d outreach program \u2013 Marimba Jam Cares \u2013 which provides free music education.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Kiara Ramklass, founder and director of Marimba Jam, started playing the marimba at age 12. Ramklass convened the first Marimba Jam in 2012.<\/p>\n

Founding director Kiara Ramklass says marimbas are \u201cone of the most accessible instruments because you don\u2019t actually need to know how to read music\u201d to play them. But a marimba costs about R8,000 and most schools can\u2019t afford them.<\/p>\n

Ramklass started playing marimbas when she was 12. She says, \u201cMusic is a space for healing, a space for common expression.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spirit of ubuntu is alive,\u201d she told the audience during the applause.<\/p>\n

Bheka Mabika, a 17-year-old student from SACS, says music has created \u201cbalance\u201d in his life. He said performing on a professional stage at Joseph Stone was an incredible experience, after having previously performed only at school halls.<\/p>\n

Marimba Jam was selected as a finalist in the 2021 Billion Acts of Peace<\/a> awards.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Marimba Jam Festival features hundreds of students between grade 4 and 12 from 18 schools.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\u00a9 2022 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bheka Mabika, a 17-year-old student, performing at the Marimba Jam Festival at the Joseph Stone Auditorium in Athlone on Friday evening. Last week, the Joseph Stone Auditorium in Athlone was humming with hundreds of young students and a jubilant audience, enjoying the annual Marimba Jam Festival. Original covers of iconic songs such as \u2018Welcome to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":236959,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-236958","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/ubuntu-is-alive-and-it-sounds-like-marimbas.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}