Platinum

Vuma Ian Levin is a jazz guitarist and composer, whose music interrogates conceptions of identity, nation, culture, power and being, both globally and in the emergent, post-1994 South African Democratic project. He has been described, by The Mail and The Guardian, as “destined to be one of South African jazz’s greatest musicians”. Vuma attended the Conservatorium van Amsterdam where he earned the Non-European-Union Talent Scholarship to finance his study. He currently lives in Johannesburg, where he holds a teaching position at the University of Witwatersrand, and continues to play and record widely. He has been the recipient of numerous award nominations and prizes, including the Keep an Eye International Jazz Awards, the Dutch Eindwerkprijs, Dutch Jazz Competition, the Socar Montreux Jazz Electric Guitar Competition and the Standard Bank Young Artist Award. He has been featured on CNN’s African Voices, and was included in The Mail and The Guardian’s 200 young South African’s list. Vuma has performed at a number of top venues and festivals in South Africa and abroad, including the North Sea Jazz Festival, Montreux Jazz Festival, Cape Town International Jazz Festival and Budapest Palace of the Arts. He has released five albums as a bandleader, and played on many others as a sideman.