By Zuko Komisa
Point of View with Phemelo Motene spoke to jazz vocalist, composer and educator Nomfundo Xaluva about her love for music and her journey.
Nomfundo is a jazz vocalist, composer, and educator who has won numerous awards. Under the umbrella of the Universal Music Group, she has two albums out.
She graduated Cum Laude with a dissertation titled The Analysis of the Musical Style of Miriam Makeba and earned a Master’s in Jazz Studies from the University of Cape Town (2009).
Nomfundo received a full scholarship in 2018 from the Henley Business School, where she successfully finished her Executive MBA.
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She served as the esteemed Cape Academy of Performing Arts Vocal Department’s director for five years, from 2009 to 2015.
LISTEN TO THE FULL CONVERSATION HERE:
On the first time she played the piano
“I was at a playdate, I had only ever seen it on television, I wrote an article in some publication sometime last year. I always thought that it’s not an instrument I would play, it’s for people on TV, it’s for white people, fancy people, classy people.”
“I was like, where am I going to come across a piano? I must have been 9 years old, and a friend of mine had a piano, there was really no playdate that day because I ended up playing the piano… I felt like I was Mozart, there was something about sitting at a piano that was so elevating.” says Xaluva.
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On being teachable as a musician
“It is something we sort of have to emphasise, the whole element of being teachable because people think you become an incredible musician through your own doing.”
“This kind of disingenuous sense of artists being really good at what they do, it’s like …’I am good because I am good, but it’s like are you sure though? Because you must have learned from someone… Being teachable plays such a big role in just how far you go.” says Xaluva.
On how technology has affected musicians
“You can be brilliant but so many people are too, that thing about what makes you unique, and what you can do to rise above the noise, we are all just trying to figure that out. Working in the digital world now, we are all trying to find a way to adjust, it is not really a product anymore, we access it through streaming. This has turned the whole ecosystem on its head.”
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