Year: 2009

Hugh Masekela, Barbican, London

The veteran South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela turned 70 in April, and this concert was a belated birthday offering from the London Symphony Orchestra and its community choir.

Hugh Masekela: the birthday boy celebrates

“I’m practising more than ever now,” he explains. “My playing is more advanced than when I was 30 or 40 years old, because then I was getting by on talent. My goal is no longer about just playing my instrument but playing it with ease.”

These nights of exhilarating live performance are reinventing music

The Guardian By Simon Jenkins The last time I heard the trumpeter and singer Hugh Masekela was at a New Year’s Eve party in 1990 on the slopes of Table Mountain. Nelson Mandela had recently been released and Masekela had returned from exile. The hot night air blew in from False Bay, and conversation crackled … Read more

A South African Great, Playing ‘To Get Well’

“Africa has been troubled for a long time — well, the world has been troubled ever since I was born,” Masekela says. “But I think in the last 20 years, the troubles in Africa have escalated to a point where I think it needs to heal. And I personally, I think, have settled down in my life, and I’ve relaxed and healed.”