The event takes place on Cullinan Square, just opposite the Cullinan Hotel in the CBD of Cape Town.
The Lady Day Big Band, under the musical direction of Amanda Tiffin as music director with Monique Hellenberg, will headline the show which includes Cameron Ward and his band.
Amanda Tiffin was born in Zimbabwe but has made her home and her name in Cape Town, South Africa, where she studied Jazz Composition and Performance at the University of Cape Town.
She received her Master's Degree with distinction and has gone on to become one of Cape Town’s best-loved vocalist-pianists, and a respected Musical director/arranger, orchestrator and composer.
Amanda has recorded seven albums and her latest collaboration, Facing South, was awarded the prestigious UCT Creative Works Award in 2021. She is also Head of Jazz Studies at the University of Cape Town.
I spoke to Amanda last week.
Musical director, lecturer, composer, arranger, performer, general admin geek.
Everything. It is my life force. It is my means of connecting with my inner self, and also with other creative people. It is community at the same time as being an inner journey.
Joy, heartache, fun, pain - all of it. My music is an expression of emotions and reactions to the world around me, and sometimes it is an exploration of possibility.
Fame is about illusion. Smoke and mirrors, not what is real.
I die.
Drama.
Maria Schneider
The beautiful wide-open countryside, and lovely country towns of the Western Cape.
The exploration of my own creativity and hearing my compositions come to life when played by some wonderful musicians.
For the Lady Day Big Band: Our signature song, Ayo Ayo.
That time my guitar player forgot he had tuned his guitar down for a particular song, and then played the next song in a totally different key to everyone else. Took us a while to work out why the song sounded so terrible! That was interesting…
My friends, who do so much for others and for me.
I don’t really have one. Should I?!
Not really a ‘possession’, more like family, but my dogs.
Hot chocolate.
Carnegie Hall, New York with the Lady Day Big Band
My mop of curls
Miss A, Prof A, and Amands.
Cook. I love to cook.
Kind. Funny. Quirky. Introverted extrovert.
The Good Fight
Too many great ones, I can’t choose just one:
Dead Poets Society (for Robin Williams and the poets)
West Side Story (for the music)
Shawshank Redemption (for Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins)
Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
Not a song but an album – Ella Fitzgerald Live at the Newport Jazz Festival.
Friends and Family. My dogs.
Discombobulated. Say that fast…
More travelling! I’d like to visit Spain and Greece
Being part of the Lady Day Big Band!
People who don’t do their job.
Snakes. I really really fear snakes after an encounter with a Cape Cobra.
Home, chilling with my dogs, writing some new music.
Talk a bit too much nonsense…
To listen.
Still on it - the journey of life.
I used to organise Jazz in the Park every year for Western Cape Centre For Persons With Disabilities, but it became too difficult to maintain due to bureaucracy with the venue. Now I just donate regularly and do youth development projects where I can.
