Stella Chiweshe to Build Culture Center in Zimbabwe
Stella Chiweshe, Zimbabwean
mbira maestro and mystic grandmother (
ambuya) of the sacred instrument, at age 74 shows no sign of slowing down. Decades after she became the first female mbira player to achieve international recognition, she has toured the world and given us, by my count, nine wonderful albums of mbira music more than any other player of Africa’s most celebrated lamellophone.
Despite the pandemic and Zimbabwe’s ongoing economic and political woes, Stella is currently working to establish a cultural retreat some 50 miles outside Harare, a place dedicated to to preserving and deepening mbira and Shona culture and carrying it on to future generations. It is also a place where artists and regular people can gather to share traditions and escape the madness of the world. At present, the Chivanhu Center
GPs have been forced into an 11th-hour overhaul of plans to deliver COVID-19 vaccines after the MHRA ruled that all patients given the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine must be observed for 15 minutes.