Patrick Chimbewa is a name that Malawi never knew until recently when he found himself on his first ever trip outside the country – Norway to be precise.<\/p>\n
He has never been on a plane before and never knew that he would one-day board a plane – but thanks to nothing else but music.<\/p>\n
Despite art being sidelined in the country, it has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the creative industry is an area the country needs to exploit if it has to develop but also help fight challenges such as unemployment.<\/p>\n
Music has made many people travel places and so there was Chimbewa, travelling to Norway alongside Asante Maulidi and Thokozani Mdoko flying Malawi\u2019s flag at the Forde Traditional and World Music Festival under the Talent 2016 project.<\/p>\n
And thanks to playing traditional instruments, Chimbewa with his colleagues came back with a certificate of attendance for participating in a Talent 2016 project and that will surely boost his musical CV.<\/p>\n
Chimbewa won the hearts of many people in Norway with his skills on the traditional instrument known as Nsansi, which he said, his grandparents used to play.<\/p>\n
He however, learned more on playing traditional instruments through ethno-musician Charles Chavamangwere Mkanthama, who has trained many youths in playing different traditional instruments.<\/p>\n
In fact Mkanthama praises Chimbewa for mastering the art of playing traditional instruments adding that he is one of the best, among the youths he has trained.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe plays with me and he has mastered playing the instruments so well and I am proud of him. I actually was very happy to hear he was among the young artists travelling to Norway,\u201d said Mkanthama.<\/p>\n
Married and has one child, Chimbewa, who works as a guard at G4S found himself on a trip to Norway having participated at the Pakhonde Music Camp held in Ntchisi and spearheaded by Music Crossroads Malawi.<\/p>\n
The young artist also hails from Traditional Authority Kaluluma in Ntchisi.<\/p>\n
\u201cI should thank Music Crossroads Malawi for selecting me to be part of the Norway trip and this is all because of my participation in the Pakhonde Music Camp. I never knew that just by playing traditional instruments one would have a chance to perform outside the country,\u201d said Chimbewa, who speaks with a deep Chichewa accent.<\/p>\n
Apart from playing traditional instruments, Chimbewa also has learned how to make some of the traditional instruments and he surely made a kill in Norway as he sold four of the Nsansis which he took with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just thought I should carry with me some Nsansi\u2019s and sell. And I am happy that people here especially artists scrambled for it. This just shows how important traditional instruments are,\u201d said the Nsansi player, as he sold one of them to a Norwegian artist.<\/p>\n
Chimbewa went as far as form four but never finished due to what he describes as financial problems.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I had gone on with my studies but I could not as I could not manage to pay school fees. My family is not well to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Chimbewa said playing traditional instruments is part of preserving culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will continue playing traditional instruments because this is part of our culture. Performing in Norway just showed that playing your own wins you\u2019re the hearts. You cannot progress if you do not play your own and so I urge fellow youths out there to learn these traditional instruments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Chimbewa led in several of the songs during Malawi\u2019s performances in Norway as he also has a five-track album to his credit.<\/p>\n
During the Talent 2016 project, the Malawi team underwent workshops with fellow young talents from Norway and Kenya before holding different performances including the main one during the Forde Traditional and World Music gala.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Patrick Chimbewa is a name that Malawi never knew until recently when he found himself on his first ever trip outside the country – Norway to be precise. He has never been on a plane before and never knew that he would one-day board a plane – but thanks to nothing else but music. Despite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28377,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28373\/revisions\/28377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}