Renowned Violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama was born of Zimbabwean-Japanese Heritage June 16, 1976

The renowned violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama, www.ngwenyama.com, was born June 16, 1976 and has long been featured at AfriClassical.com as a Musician of African Descent.  Barrett Vantage Artists quotes the Philadelphia Inquirer on her recent performance with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio.  An excerpt from Arizona Jewish News explains the manner in which the violist discovered the Jewish heritage of her late father's relatives in Zimbabwe.

Barrett Vantage Artists represents Nokuthula Ngwenyama. It lists this example of Latest Acclaim:

“Laredo and guest violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama had a nice thing going on [with the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio] in the Dvorák Piano Quartet in E flat major (Op. 87), often passing similar material back and forth. The spirited reading gathered energy through interactions of this sort, as well as some lovely repose from cellist Sharon Robinson in the second movement. Ngwenyama has a fascinating kind of charismatic sound. It’s not huge, and yet, through a combination of focus and refinement, it has great presence. She’s young, born just a few months before KLR’s debut, and brought the added benefit of responding to her colleagues in subtle ways.”

— Philadelphia Inquirer  February 2014

Arizona Jewish News posted an interview with Nokuthula Ngwenyama, also in February 2014:

MUSIC (AND JUDAISM) ARE IN HER BLOOD

By Kerry Politzer

Comment by email:

Nokuthula is a highly accomplished artist who symbolizes diversity and the reality of ethnic and religious non-exclusivity. We are ONE.  [John Malveaux]

It was only after Ngwenyama’s father passed away that her heritage was revealed to her. “I went to visit my relatives, and there I was in the middle of the bush in Zimbabwe and this cousin says, ‘You know we’re Jewish, right?’ I was like, ‘What?’ I’m sitting there in shock because my father had never told me about this.” - See more at: http://www.azjewishlife.com/2014/feb/ae/music-and-judaism-are-her-blood#sthash.b9ZVq2P1.dpuf

While Ngwenyama discovered her calling early in life, her Judaism was a much later discovery. She explains: “My mother is from Japan and my father was from Zimbabwe. What’s interesting about my father’s background is that he came from a group of Ndebele but also Lemba, who are the Jews of southern Africa. I didn’t know much about this growing up because my father was extremely secular.” - See more at: http://www.azjewishlife.com/2014/feb/ae/music-and-judaism-are-her-blood#sthash.b9ZVq2P1.dpuf

t was only after Ngwenyama’s father passed away that her heritage was revealed to her. “I went to visit my relatives, and there I was in the middle of the bush in Zimbabwe and this cousin says, ‘You know we’re Jewish, right?’ I was like, ‘What?’ I’m sitting there in shock because my father had never told me about this.” - See more at: http://www.azjewishlife.com/2014/feb/ae/music-and-judaism-are-her-blood#sthash.b9ZVq2P1.dpuf

t was only after Ngwenyama’s father passed away that her heritage was revealed to her. “I went to visit my relatives, and there I was in the middle of the bush in Zimbabwe and this cousin says, ‘You know we’re Jewish, right?’ I was like, ‘What?’ I’m sitting there in shock because my father had never told me about this.” - See more at: http://www.azjewishlife.com/2014/feb/ae/music-and-judaism-are-her-blood#sthash.b9ZVq2P1.dpuf

t was only after Ngwenyama’s father passed away that her heritage was revealed to her. “I went to visit my relatives, and there I was in the middle of the bush in Zimbabwe and this cousin says, ‘You know we’re Jewish, right?’ I was like, ‘What?’ I’m sitting there in shock because my father had never told me about this.” - See more at: http://www.azjewishlife.com/2014/feb/ae/music-and-judaism-are-her-blood#sthash.b9ZVq2P1.dpuf

  was only after Ngwenyama’s father passed away that her heritage was revealed to her. “I went to visit my relatives, and there I was in the middle of the bush in Zimbabwe and this cousin says, ‘You know we’re Jewish, right?’ I was like, ‘What?’ I’m sitting there in shock because my father had never told me about this.”
At the time, Ngwenyama was involved in theological studies at Harvard University, and she began to research the story of the Lemba. “This is not only my hypothesis,” she says, “the working consensus is that the Lemba really came from the Arabian Peninsula, down through the trade routes on the Indian Ocean. You have Jewish communities along the Malabar Coast in India. This predates the rise of Islam and coincides with the time when there actually was a Jewish kingdom in modern-day Yemen.” The Lemba people now reside in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
- See more at: http://www.azjewishlife.com/2014/feb/ae/music-and-judaism-are-her-blood#sthash.b9ZVq2P1.dpuf

  was only after Ngwenyama’s father passed away that her heritage was revealed to her. “I went to visit my relatives, and there I was in the middle of the bush in Zimbabwe and this cousin says, ‘You know we’re Jewish, right?’ I was like, ‘What?’ I’m sitting there in shock because my father had never told me about this.”
At the time, Ngwenyama was involved in theological studies at Harvard University, and she began to research the story of the Lemba. “This is not only my hypothesis,” she says, “the working consensus is that the Lemba really came from the Arabian Peninsula, down through the trade routes on the Indian Ocean. You have Jewish communities along the Malabar Coast in India. This predates the rise of Islam and coincides with the time when there actually was a Jewish kingdom in modern-day Yemen.” The Lemba people now reside in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
- See more at: http://www.azjewishlife.com/2014/feb/ae/music-and-judaism-are-her-blood#sthash.b9ZVq2P1.dpuf

Music (and Judaism) are in her blood

By Kerry Politzer, February 2014

- See more at: http://www.azjewishlife.com/2014/feb/ae/music-and-judaism-are-her-blood#sthash.b9ZVq2P1.dpuf