Lydia Manyama (Born 23 August 1982) Currently studying music (BMUS) third year level at the University of Witwatersrand.

Education

I firstly studied Music performance majoring in Jazz vocal with Central Johannesburg College (CJC), completed in 2014.

Experience

I always say music is my life. I’ve always been involved in music groups since my primary education to high school. I’ve been a member of a praise and worship teams for over a decade. I formed my own music groups since 2013. Currently offer voice training for the two groups I work with at church. As a soloist I perform in various events, weddings, music concerts and funerals. In 2015 I joined Young Wits Choir and took a break in 2016 because of my engagement with the Jazz Ensembles we had weekly at the university. I have been part of these ensembles for three years as part of my BMUS studies. I then rejoined the Wits choir in 2017, and to date I am an active member of Wits choir.

 

My professional career as an artist seems to be starting before I could even complete my BMus studies, through the recommendation of the Wits Choir  master, Ms. Dalene Hoogenhout I was selected for auditions to be part of the William Kentridge production in 2017 which I was successfully chosen to be part of the production. This remains the highest achievement to date as a music student to be part of that kind of project. We will be doing International tours in April, July, August and December as part of the William Kentridge production following yet another successful production we were involved in 2017.

Future Plan

My dream is to have a music school and run music projects that will bring music education and training to those less privileged but have passion for music and wish to pursue music as a career. I have seen a gap in the area of music education in schools particularly in the townships. There are no music subjects in most of the township schools as compared to the private schools. When I started at the university I’ve found that students from township or rural areas battle to get space at varsity without music subjects or background. My aim is to launch music as a subject for schools in townships and those community halls or club houses which mostly don’t have sponsorships to support their artistic activities. After my completion of matric I could not afford to further my studies. However, I had community club as a support structure in my gap years which introduced me to dance and musical theatre. When I first started studying music, the community youth club lend me a keyboard to help me with my studies. I see that this type of facilities as helpful in nurturing and support of the talent our young people have, therefore formal music activities contribution to this kind of facilities would be of value in promotion of art and cultural.