Ladysmith Black Mambazo to Perform New Works from ALWAYS WITH US at Kimmel Center, 2/2

The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts presents Grammy winning Ladysmith Black Mambazo in Verizon Hall on February 2, at 7:30 p.m. The South African a capella sensation is celebrating over 50 years of joyous and uplifting music with a spiritual message about the beauty of South Africa that has touched audiences around the globe.

In 2014 the group released their newest album, Always With Us. This latest creation is a tribute to the group and Shabalala family matriarch, Nellie Shabalala, founder Joseph Shabalala's wife, who passed away in 2002. The album's 10-song collection is based on recordings Nellie made with her church choir, Women of Mambazo, in 2001. Ladysmith Black Mambazo has since added their voices to Nellie's recordings to create a collection of hauntingly beautiful songs that pay tribute to her life and memory. Always With Us is the first recording in the group's 40+ year history to feature female Zula vocalists performing traditional songs. The group looks forward to sharing these songs with the world.

"The album comes from deep inside my heart," Shabalala said of Always With Us. "It might be more personal than anything we have shared with the world before."

"It was important for us not just to record these songs, but to create beautiful music," Shabalala adds in LA Times interview. "From the first day we worked with Nellie's recordings to the final day when we knew we were finished, our primary objective was to make a collection of beautiful songs."

Tickets are available from $35 to $65 and can be purchased by calling 215-893-1999, online at kimmelcenter.org, at the Kimmel Center box office at Broad & Spruce Streets (open daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.).

Ladysmith Black Mambazo are South Africa's "Cultural Ambassadors to the World," a title bestowed on them by Nelson Mandela, who invited the group to perform during his trip to Oslo, Norway in 1993, where he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The group was assembled in the early 1960s in South Africa by Joseph Shabalala, then a young farm boy turned factory worker. Ladysmith is the name of Joseph's hometown, a small farming area between Durban and Johannesburg; Black being a reference to the oxen, the strongest of all farm animals; and Mambazo, the Zulu word for chopping axe, a symbol of the group's ability to "chop down" any singing rival who might challenge them. Their collective voices were so tight and their harmonies so polished that by the end of the 1960's they were banned from competitions, although they were welcome to participate as entertainers.

During the 1970's Ladysmith Black Mambazo established themselves as the most successful singing group in South Africa. In the mid-1980s, Paul Simon visited South Africa and incorporated the group's rich tenor/alto/bass harmonies into his famous Graceland album - a landmark recording that was considered seminal in introducing world music to mainstream audiences. A year later, Paul Simon produced Ladysmith Black Mambazo's first worldwide release, Shaka Zulu, which won a Grammy Award in 1988. Since then, the group has been awarded three more Grammy Awards forRaise Your Spirit Higher (2004), Ilembe (2009), and Singing For Peace Around The World(2013), and has been nominated a total of fifteen times.

In addition to their work with Paul Simon, Ladysmith Black Mambazo has recorded with numerous artists including Stevie Wonder, Dolly Parton, Sarah McLachlan, Josh Groban, Emmylou Harris, Melissa Etheridge, and many others. They have provided film soundtrack material for Disney's The Lion King, Part II as well as Eddie Murphy's Coming to America, Marlon Brando's A Dry White Season, James Earl Jones' Cry, the Beloved Country, and Clint Eastwood's Invictus. A film documentary titled On Tip Toe: Gentle Steps to Freedom, the Story of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, was nominated for an Academy Award. Mambazo's work in The Song of Jacob Zulu, a play written about the apartheid era, resulted in six Tony nominations. The group has also appeared in Broadway.

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