Todd Matshikiza

Todd tozama Matshikiza (* 1921 in Queenstown ( South Africa); † March 4, 1968 in Lusaka, Zambia) was a South African journalist, composer and jazz pianist.

Life and work

Matshikiza comes from a musical family; his father was an organist, his mother a singer. He graduated from the St Peter 's College in Rosettenville (Johannesburg), and then to study music and to be trained at the University of Fort Hare as a teacher. By 1947, he then taught English and mathematics in Alice. During this time he composed songs and choral works; here is particularly Hamba Kahle call, which became the standard work in South Africa.

Matshikiza moved to Johannesburg in 1947, where he gave piano lessons in his Todd Matshikiza School of Music. His main interest at this time formed the jazz music; to achieve a regular income, he first had to take other jobs. He also worked as a bookseller and businessman. His nephew Pat Matshikiza he gave piano lessons.

Between 1949 and 1954 he was in the Syndicate of African Artists worked, wanted to promote the music in the townships through concerts by guest musicians. Since 1952, he wrote as a journalist for the magazine Drum; he had for instance a column in which reported on the Townshipszene the former jazz mecca Sophiatown, where musicians such as Kippie Moeketsi and Hugh Masekela were active. He later wrote for The Golden City Post.

In addition, he wrote in 1953 another choral piece, Makhaliphile, which he dedicated to Trevor Huddleston, in which he combined classical European- South African and jazz themes. In 1956 he composed on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the founding of Johannesburg Uxolo the piece, which was performed by a mass choir. Now as a jazz pianist, he worked for well-known groups like the Manhattan Brothers and the Harlem Swing Roosters, with whom he toured nationally and in Mozambique.

In 1958 he composed the music and some of the texts for his musical King Kong, which represents a milestone in South African music because of its strong reception. The following year he wrote with Mkhumbane another, embossed over long distances through a cappella choirs musical in which he addressed the forced removals from the township of Cato Manor in Durban.

Frustrated by the apartheid policies of the South African government took Matshikiza 1960, the opportunity to take on the English performance of his musical King Kong to London. However, he found no way to establish itself in the British music scene, occasionally played piano in the nightclub scene, gave music lessons and was working as a journalist for British music; for the magazine Drum, he wrote the column Todd in London. Also he gave in 1961 a book of autobiographical stories out.

In 1964 he found employment in the Zambian Broadcasting Corporation and returned with his family as a radio producer back to Africa. In 1967 he was an ethnomusicologist for the Zambian Information Service.

• Chocolates for My Wife. Hodder & Stoughton, 1961; 2nd edition with David Philip Publishers, 1982, ISBN 0-90-839683- X
• With the Lid Off: South African insights from home and abroad from 1959 to 2000. M & G Books, ISBN 0-620-26244-3, together with John Matshikiza

Lexigraphic entries

• Dictionary of African Composers
• Encyclopedia Britannica