Picture: Izak de Vries
Liz Campbell lives in an old stone building on a smallholding in a hamlet called Stone Hill, close to Makhanda. Many rescued donkeys live there with her. Let this not fool you, though. Campbell is a highly qualified, gifted musician and music teacher.
LifeCycles, the show, took her seven years to shape and create. The songs performed were part of her LifeCycle series. (Note the show has an s, the series does not.) The songs and the hour-long performance took the audience through various cycles – the ups and the downs – of daily living. Campbell used poetry to tell the stories and created soundtracks for each to accompany the words. Here is an example of a song called “Tough lives”.
As a classically trained musician, Campbell drew inspiration from Bach, Chopin and many others. She wrote music, borrowed music, “stole” music (her words) and blended them into an auditory experience.
During the performance, various paintings by Dan Wylie, a poet and academic from Makhanda, were displayed. Each contributed to the narrative of the song it was illustrating. Campbell played the piano mostly, while for two songs she played the guitar.
Tshegofatso Bennia Makube, a singer and songwriter in her own right and a PhD candidate at Rhodes, helped Campbell with earlier recordings of the song cycle. Bennia Makube’s voice and her interpretation of Campbell’s songs are marvellous additions to the music. Here is a recording of Campbell and Bennia Makube performing “Firefly women”.
This recording does not include Tessa Campbell, though. Tessa Campbell is a violinist for the Cape Town Philharmonic and a teacher of violin. She also happens to be the daughter of Liz Campbell. I loved the violin. It created a delightful richness to the songs.
Tessa Campbell often picked the violin during “Firefly women” – adding to the image of faint lights turning on and off. Like the other two, she is classically trained, but at times she also allowed gipsy-like sounds from the violin to haunt the performance.
Here is another of the LifeCycle songs available on YouTube already. This is Liz Campbell singing and playing the guitar in “Advice to a girl”.
I like this rendition. It proves just how versatile Liz Campbell is, but the live performance was even more satisfying. The trio, and their really good sound team, gave the audience a performance that will long be remembered.
Tshegofatso Bennia Makube has a fabulous voice and does a great job interpreting Campbell’s songs. Tessa Campbell on violin lifted the experience to the next level. If this show were to be recorded in a studio, I’d love to buy the album. Even the live show would be worth releasing.
LifeCycles was proof that our local is often very lekker and more than capable of matching performances from all over the world. We have great artists. Be sure to follow Liz Campbell on YouTube.