Page 24 - ChildArt_Magazine_Oct-Dec2015

Seeing

Through

Sound

by TRUST MUTEKWA

magine traveling to a foreign country without been a drummer for six years but can also play a bass
a parent to hold your hand when needed. guitar, a keyboard and the mbira (pronounced um-beer-
Now imagine that while there you step onto the uh, a small keyboard-like instrument mounted inside a
IWorld Stage with your group to perform in front gourd). Tanyaradzwa can reproduce musical rhythms af-
of many Americans and people from across the globe ter simply listening to a new song. He is a regular player
but you cannot see their world. The five blind musi- at his church in Harare.
cians of the St. Giles Special School were excited to be in Florence Makuyana, age 11, is a singer and plays the
Washington and a bit scared too. Theirs was the very first hoshos (a Zimbabwean instrument similar to marachas).
group from Zimbabwe ever to be invited to the WCF. She also dances. For those who prefer humor to music,
If you lose one sense, do the other four become stron- Rumbidzai Ndoro, age 12, is the band’s comic relief.
ger? This for true for them, as it was for blind singers Multi-talented, she warmed up the festival audience
like Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Andrea Bocelli and Jose by telling a joke. Beauty Ngwende, at 13, is the old-
Feliciano. Every band has its rock star, and Tanyaradzwa est member and a vibrant mbira player. She sang songs
Gondo was the one for the Mbira Band. Age 12, he has while her thumbs worked the mbira. Japhet Wirirai, the

24 ChildArt | October–December 2015