Muhammad Dawjee

Muhammad Dawjee is a musician and composer based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Dawjee has shared the stage with some of the most prolific jazz musicians of his time. As a tenor saxophonist, he draws heavily from the avant-garde jazz period and is particularly interested in the role of improvised music and identity in the Indian diaspora in South Africa.

He has worked with Dr. Abdullah Ibrahim, Andile Yenana and Mandla Mlangeni and has been selected for several Standard Bank National Schools’ Big Bands while in the infancy of his career. Amongst his career highlights are being selected to play as part of the North Sea Big Band, curated and conducted by Arne Hiorth in 2009, alongside tertiary music students such as Sisonke Xonti and other local and international professional musicians such as Shannon Mowday, Mike Rossi, Frank Brodahl (Norway) & Arne Hiorth (Norway).

Born in Pretoria South Africa, Muhammad was never formally educated in music, but grew up surrounded by it - in the Malay choral Gadaat recitals his grandfather used to host on Sundays and tinkering at the piano his grandmother bought for his elder sisters, who were already taking lessons when he was born. It was by being raised in this musically inclined family that Muhammad’s love for music was born and nurtured. His interest in the horn was sparked by a series of serendipitous events, when his father, a dentist by profession brought a saxophone home and taught himself to play. Looking up to his father is how Muhammad picked up the sax for the first time and fell in love.

In his capacity as an architect he works as a part-time design tutor with Unit 19 – The Act of Service at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg with a particular interestin improvised performance as a socio-spatial research practice.

Muhammad is currently a resident member of iPhupho L’ka Biko, The Siphephelo Ndlovu Project, and The Brother Moves On. He is also one of the founding members of the indo-jazz trio Kinsmen, a group that has seen him act as an independent recording artist and co-producer of the SAMA nominated album ‘Window to the Ashram’ (2017) which explores the improvised music of the Indian Subcontinent from an AfrIndian perspective. His highly anticipated debut EP Otherness, features Keenan Ahrends, Romy Brauteseth, Nicholas Bjorkman, Siphephelo Ndlovu and Lwanda Gogwana and is due for release in 2021.