Call for entries: Mbira Month in Zimbabwe

The two festivals are organised by the Mbira Centre in Zimbabwe and seek to celebrate Africa through music and the diversity of African cultural expressions, which gave birth to various music forms and cultures across the world. The Mbira Centre is a cultural institute that creates mbira instruments and related products, including handmade chromatic mbiras, traditional mbiras and resonators.

African instrumentalists worldwide can submit entries in the following formats:

• Concerts.
• Music video.
• Documentaries.
• Photo and art exhibitions.
• Articles.
• Project launches.

“This edition will be a global digital celebration of African musical instruments and the music they produce,” Mbira Centre founder and director Albert Chimedza told Music In Africa.

“We welcome and encourage work produced on inexpensive production devices such as cellphones. Technical deficiencies should not be an obstacle to anyone wanting to submit an entry. This allows for marginalised people to have the same access to the festival as those of means.”

He added: “We desire to offer a platform where African instrument makers and the producers of music using those instruments can tell their stories in their own voices, creating a viable and self-sustaining pan-African creative, institutional and economic ecosystems for African musical instruments and the music they produce.”

Interested artists can submit entries via WhatsApp on +263 712 216 054 or via email at zimbabwembirafestival@gmail.com.

Entries submitted before the start of the festival are preferable.

Note:

• Entries must adhere to copyright and fair use considerations.
• Participation is voluntary and there is no remuneration.