Celebrating African instruments at St Stithians College in Sandton
SANDTON – St Stithians hosts its second college marimba festival. Find out how it went here.
St Stithians College in Sandton hosted its second college marimba festival on 16 May.
More than 100 marimba players from nine schools participated in an evening celebrating the African instrument.
Each participating school’s marimba group performed a set of their choosing with some playing more recent popular songs such as Plut to Beatenberg and Happy by Pharell Williams, while others opted for more classic popular songs such as The Click Song by Miriam Makeba and You rock my world by Michael Jackson.
Now in its second year, the festival was organised by the school’s director of marimbas, Michael Sibanda.
The night kicked off with the whole group of more than 100 marimba players performing Ben E. King’s Stand by Me. The programme then allowed each school to showcase their marimba talents with their chosen set. The group then reconnected at the end of the night for another combined item, entitled Track 12.
“The aim of the festival is to bring together school marimba bands to perform together and for each other with no sense of competition,” said Sibanda.
“From this festival, the different groups bring a wide variety of repertoire to share with each other. Performance opportunities for school marimba bands are limited so the festival provides an excellent performance platform.
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“My highlight of the festival is the combined items where all participants perform together. This gives a sense of unity, co-operation and total enjoyment. Everybody leaves the festival proud of their achievement and contribution.”
