HARARE - The success of, Liyana Band, has inspired the oldest band for people living with disabilities- Jairos Jiri, to revive its musical group. Liyana band, made up of people with disabilities, recently won an Oscar award for their music played on their short documentary known as Music with Prudence. The Jairos Jiri Association School for the visually impaired band, which is based in Kadoma, has so far recruited 13 artists. The band manager, Robson Mathema, said they were happy with the progress they were making in the countrys music scene because over the last years they had not done so well due to financial constraints.
The band collapsed after the departure of the late Paul Matavire who was blind. We have been failing over the past years because we lacked resources. Now that we have a complete set of instruments, we hope our music project will go a long way because we want to replace our legendary artists Paul Matavire and David Mabvuramiti, he said.
The band that we have was formed six years ago and most of our artists are still young. We are confident that they have a bright future in the arts industry and we hope that they will help us form a good band like the one we had in the past, added Mathema.
Rich Madamombe and Siboniwe Dube, who are both teachers at the school, guide the up-and-coming musicians. The school produced one of the countrys powerful bands led by the late Matavire and some influential group members were Mabvuramiti, Daniel Gonyora and the late Gift Matombe among others.
During their peak the band split when Matavire decided to form his own band, and the group was led by gospel singer Mabvuramiti. Some of the group members in the new set up are Tafara Matombe, the son of the late Gift Matombe, Simango Tinashe, Anesu Mgodi, Tito Rachel and Bernard Samhere.
Post published in: Music