Vuma Levin, suggested the Mail & Guardian, “is destined to be one of South African Jazz’s greatest musicians”. Levin is a guitarist, composer and lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand and winner of this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Jazz. After music studies in Pretoria he graduated with a Master’s degree cum laude from the Amsterdam Conservatorium and was a semi-finalist at the Montreux Socar International Jazz Guitar competition in Switzerland. His music is centred on post-apartheid South African identity and of his latest album, “Antique Spoons”, Levin explains that, “The sounds I used on the album are really a mix of many different influences – contemporary jazz, as well as contemporary South African jazz”. It is this complex mix of influences that he ambitiously harnesses in his Makhanda Standard Bank Young Artist performances, combining a string quartet from Amsterdam, a trio of Swiss instrumentalists, a Dutch jazz quartet, and a well-known Dutch arranger and conductor, all interspersed with his guitar playing, and carefully laid out in his complex compositions.

Vuma will perform at the DSG Hall on 29 June and 1 July