Lifetime Achievement Award for Dizu Plaatjies

Neo-traditional African musician Dizu Plaatjies, head of African Music: Practical Studies at the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) South African College of Music, has been awarded a ministerial Lifetime Achievement Award by the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport (DCAS).

The department hosts the Cultural Affairs Awards annually to recognise and celebrate cultural, linguistic and heritage excellence in the province, with this year’s event held on 9 March at the Artscape Theatre Complex.

Dizu, founder and former leader of Langa marimba group Amampondo, which put traditional South African music on the international map in the 1980s, is a College of Music alumnus and has now returned to lecture.

On leaving Amampondo, he started a new ensemble, Ibuyambo, with which he has toured the world for the past decade. He and Ibuyambo are the recipients of two South African Music Awards (SAMAs), for the albums African Kings and Ubuntu – The Common String.