Thursday 15 January 2015

Sathima Benjamin :: Music (Cape Town Goema Orchestra)



Shaken by the Soweto Uprising in 1976, jazz singer and composer Sathima Bea Benjamin left South Africa in 1977 with her then-husband Abdullah Ibrahim (Dollar Brand) and settled in New York City for 34 years. She returned to the city of her childhood in 2011, making Cape Town her home once again and continuing to perform until her death at the age of 76 in August 2013. She appears here on 8 December 2012 in the first of a pair of performances with the Cape Town Goema Orchestra. Written by Benjamin, the spiritual ballad "Music" was recorded for her canonical African Songbird album in 1976 and revisited for LoveLight on Benjamin's own Ekapa label in 1987. The composition was arranged for orchestra by conductor George Werner.