Getting into the festive swing like it’s the 1920s
Four of SA’s most talented vocalists will make it a Christmas to remember, writes Robyn Sassen
ON November 5, Yamikani MahakaPhiri, 21, wrote the final exams for his BA in drama at the University of the Witwatersrand.
He has not received his results yet, but his career is already gathering momentum. Next week he debuts professionally as one of the vocalists in a big band production, Swingin’ Christmas, alongside established performers Cito (frontman of rock band Wonderboom), Tracey-Lee Oliver (who debuted in the hit musical Dreamgirls ) and Pixie Bennett (“the dynamite” from Idols season 5).
Mahaka-Phiri grins. “I’m very aware of being the baby in the company. Not that I’m treated differently, but just take a look at who I am working with. It’s a bit scary.”
Cito, who needs no introduction to musical theatre fans, will be making his film debut later this year in the Indian film Chander Paher. Bennett has been a good dozen years in the industry and her eponymous pop rock band has turned awards-panel heads.
Mahaka-Phiri was noticed in August by publicist Collett Dawson and Cito in Love, a student musical revue directed by Gina Shmukler.
Show director Paul Rodgers, who is also principal bassoonist and managing director of the Johannesburg Festival Orchestra, says Mahaka-Phiri “pushes the envelope” and is up for the challenge.
The show is arranged and conducted by Adam Howard, a prolific composer and first trumpet in the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, who has composed music for TKZee and the Barlow Brothers.
“It was a dream to do a big band concert like this,” says Rodgers.
“It’s a genre you associate with 1920s swing. It might make you think of the smooth sounds of the Glenn Miller Orchestra or Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis jnr, but contemporary performers gravitate towards the big band sound, like Michael Bublé and Robbie Williams. Amy Winehouse always used a big band for her backing.”
Dawson and Cito got together seven months ago to form CoLab and they are producing Swingin’ Christmas as their first project.
“Yes, it’s retro, but it is coming back in a huge way,” says Rodgers.
“Well-written music lasts forever. Think of Mozart and Beethoven. No one ever calls it dated.”
“My first love is Shakespeare,” adds MahakaPhiri, who went to Sacred Heart College.
“Someone randomly heard me singing in a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and suggested I attend the extracurricular course in musical theatre that Gina was giving. I hated musicals. People would be talking to each other then suddenly they’d burst into song. It was embarrassing.
“When I’m doing it, though, it does make sense.”
Says Rodgers: “He’s a natural. His voice is gold. If he never loses that humility, he will go far. Talent is important in this industry; temperament and nerves of steel are vital.”
He says decisions about the repertoire were collaborative. “In a big band, almost every member is irreplaceable.
“A traditional big band comprises 17 players: four trumpets, four trombones, five saxophones and a fourpiece rhythm section — bass, rhythm guitar, drums and piano.”
Both men choose Winter Wonderland , the 1934 pop standard recorded by performers from Bing Crosby to the Eurythmics, as their favourite.