Pumeza Matshikiza (Shadow and Act)
Shadow and Act (Click link for video)
Sergio Mims
June 22, 2013
So continuing with my weekend series of inspiring
video shorts about black musicians who are breaking boundaries and “thinking outside the box”, here’s
number two of three.
Today we focus on opera singer Pumeza Matshikiza who has just signed a recording contact with the major
classical music label Decca Classics, who, in turn, has produced a short video in which Ms. Matshikiza goes back to the
townships of Cape Town, South Africa
where she was born and raised to talk about her very humble beginnings.
In
a recent interview, she talked about the journey of her
life, participating in anti-apartheid demonstrations when she was a very
young child, even being attacked by the police with tear gas. She even
witnessed people
being “necklaced” (tires filled with gasoline placed around a person’s
neck and
being set on fire) right in front of her.
She started singing in church choirs along with her mother,
but when she heard her first opera on the radio as a teenager, that’s when her
life changed. As she said: "I
didn't know anything about opera, but when I found that channel, I started to
listen to it because it was so beautiful. After that I listened to that station
almost every evening."
But her teachers and peers convinced her that there was
no future in classical music and she actually was planning to become a surveyor
at first, but stuck to her dreams and studied voice at the University of Cape Town.
She got a job performing in a puppet show and the
producer of the show was so impressed with her voice that he convinced her to apply
to the Royal College of Music in London which she did and was immediately
accepted.
The rest is history.
She is currently under contract
to the Stuttgart Opera and performs
in other opera houses and recitals all over the world, attracting the attention
of Decca Classics who quickly signed her
up.
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