Zivanai keeps carving a place for himself in the hearts and minds of audiences and musicians alike with his sweet, sincerely heartfelt and ticklish style of guitar playing. Although particularly known for his beautifully rhythmic Southern African style, Zivanai has become popular for his ability to fuse his African rhythm sensibilities with Western styles such as Jazz, Blues and Rock with amazing fluency, creating a fresh new sound all his own.
Born in Harare - Zimbabwe on the brink of the Southern African country’s independence, Zivanai can be regarded as a veteran of music. This all-round musician, multi-instrumentalist, composer/arranger, producer/engineer has toured the world, rubbed shoulders and shared the stage with legends such as Thomas Mapfumo, Oliver Mtukudzi, Hugh Masekela, Buddy Guy, Ziggy Marley, The String Cheese Incident and others far too many to mention. Lately, he has been seen with the vastly talented group PANJEA.
More recently has been working on a solo career that is quickly establishing him as one of the torchbearers of African and World Music into the future. Just like his guitar playing, Zivanai’s solo work disregards categorization and reflects the various influences that have shaped him into the maverick musician he is today.
In his teenage years, Zivanai was somewhat of a trumpet prodigy, sitting as the main soloist in various orchestras and ensembles around Harare. All the while, he was also being immersed in various forms of traditional Zimbabwean music and dance. By the time he was 16, he had established himself as a professional musician, being hired to play on various high profile recordings. It was on one of these recording sessions that Zivanai met Clive Mukundu, former guitarist for Oliver Mtukudzi. He was so blown away by Clive’s playing that he vowed to learn to play the guitar.
Zivanai borrowed an old acoustic guitar from his brother-in-law. The guitar did not have the tuning key for the high E string and therefore had only five strings, but he was not deterred. He started teaching himself to play by trying to reproduce what he heard on local radio. It was not until 2000 that Zivanai started to take guitar seriously. While playing trumpet and keyboards on a tour of the U.S. with Thomas Mapfumo, Zivanai was called upon to fill in for the band’s lead guitarist who had left the tour due to illness. Zivanai has been a guitarist ever since.
In 2004, Zivanai moved to New York City, where he enrolled in the Audio Recording and Technology program at Mercy College. It was while at the college that Zivanai recorded his first CD album, PACHEDU which was released in 2005. 2007 saw the release of the follow up album, Dutu-Storm. Both of the albums were wholly recorded and mixed by Zivanai and were mastered by Grammy winning mastering engineer, Paul Blakemore. Banning Eyre, Editor In Chief of Afropop Worldwide describes Zivanai’s music as “the work of a young man wise beyond his age …… this guy is going places”.
Currently, Zivanai teaches the African music program at Colorado College in Colorado Springs and is in the studio working on a new album “IT’S TIME” which is due for release in the Spring of 2009. He is also scoring music for a film by Boulder based filmmaker Robin Truesdale.
