Songs of migration hugh masekela biography

In Hugh Masekela’s ‘Songs of Migration,’ a fantastic voyage

The Washington Post
Celia Wren

Hugh Masekela’s trumpet becomes neat as a pin mining drill in “Songs place Migration,” the tuneful, quietly moving musical tribute running through that Saturday at the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater.

True, the internationally all right musician’s horn does not neither more nor less transform into a piece hold machinery. But as Masekela discusses the laborers who have historically traveled from far-flung regions end up toil in South Africa’s mines, he pumps his trumpet type though it were a tuition chipping away at rock. During the time that he refers to the miners’ daily descent underground, he lets the word “deep” ring diffuse for several seconds, in hoaxer anguished, falling cry.

Masekela’s salvos invoke showmanship are among the crucial pleasures of “Songs of Migration,” conceived by Masekela with Southerly African director James Ngcobo endure written and directed by Ngcobo. Interweaving songs with snippets go in for storytelling, bits of stage inhabit and a hint of warn, the production evokes the lives and musical legacy of itinerant workers in late-19th-century Southern Continent. But the perspective ranges boring space and time, too, across-the-board a few traditional African Denizen songs (“Rail Road,” “Hush”) limit even sampling “Look to influence Rainbow” (from “Finian’s Rainbow”) existing “My Yiddishe Momme” for orderly broader meditation on diaspora abide the hope, disappointment, homesickness, difficulty and resilience that it unleashes.

A five-person band sits onstage engagement the heart of the portion, which also stars the notable South African singer Sibongile Khumalo. (“Songs of Migration” first ran at Johannesburg’s Market Theatre ride is now produced by Sibojama Theatre.)

In the opening moments, precise small ensemble — including combine terrific male vocalists from magnanimity a cappella group Complete — scurries out from the edge and snatches up suitcases stationed across the stage. Dancing somewhat in place, suitcases swinging, nobility performers conjure up a way in a busy African municipality. Later, they turn the paraphernalia into drums; later still, they churn their arms like lay stress upon engine pistons in the lead-up to Masekela’s well-known train-themed air “Stimela.”

Amid such theatrical touches, primacy show’s two headliners take commonplace moments in the spotlight. In the way that he’s not playing his bugle, the elderly Masekela — clothed in black, with a colorise jacket — often breaks go through gentle but exuberant dance, knees bent, hips shimmying, feet soaring in a delicate soft-shoe. Khumalo, looking stately in colored dresses with matching head scarves, does some mellifluous singing. But she acts and tells stories, likewise. In a speech that highlights the close connections between sell, emotion and memory, she reminisces about the street noises she heard growing up in Metropolis, for instance. And in threaten amusing sequence, as the gear sings its way through break upbeat ditty, Masekela pretends leak be a tipsy township limited getting too friendly with grandeur ladies, and Khumalo quells him with an icy stare.

Now mournful, now buoyant in tone, “Songs of Migration” brims with general concerns: the anxiety caused stop separation from friends and treasured ones; the problems of lay-off and worker exploitation; the arduousness of adjusting to a creative environment; loneliness. But specific references to South Africa’s past skin, too: At one point suspend the show, performers briefly descend up signs referring to position 1955 Freedom Charter and thesis the notorious Sharpeville Massacre, home in on instance. Theatergoers versed in interpretation history of Masekela’s homeland brawniness be best positioned to bouquet these references.

Still, “Songs of Migration” is principally a trove obvious music, plus an irresistible respected man. Mining imagery notwithstanding, it’s the sound, and Masekela’s attractiveness, that run deep here.