MUTUPO/BLOODLINE

Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa-Nzou Mambano

Mutupo/Bloodline is a musical journey rooted in inheritance. The program traces the music passed down to me through my bloodline, with projections of my ancestors, elders, and family woven throughout. Each piece reflects what they have taught me about music—and how it can be used as a tool for healing, from the inside out.

Drawing inspiration from Zimbabwe’s founding intellectual and spiritual philosophies, Indigenous Zimbabwean mbira traditions, and nineteenth-century hymnologies introduced by colonial-era Christian missionaries, Mutupo / Bloodline explores the layered inheritance that shapes my people’s story. Through sound, image, and memory, the work honors our resilience and gives voice to our hard-won victories.

“Tawengwa, a composer, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and scholar, combines classical Zimbabwean music with Western classical music to create a unique brand of cross-pollinated, hybrid music.” - I CARE IF YOU LISTEN

SOLO ARTIST - Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa-Nzou Mambano

INSTRUMENTATION - Voice, Piano, Mbira, Hosho, Bhosvo and Electronics

CREATIVE TEAM

TANYARADZWA TAWENGWA - NZOU MAMBANO

Composer

Dr. Tanyaradzwa Tawengwa-Nzou Mambano is a Zimbabwean gwenyambira, composer, singer, scholar, and healer whose craft is grounded in the Chivanhu ancestral canon taught to her by generations of Svikiro (spirit mediums) and N’anga (healers) in her bloodline. Her work calls for a reintegrative practice that heals the spiritual, emotional, economic, physical, and intellectual disembodiment caused by the 600-year colonial war waged against her people. Her creative work has been performed at Carnegie Hall, Boston Lyric Opera, the Royal Opera of Versailles, Yale Repertory Theatre, Soho Rep, National Sawdust, The Public Theatre, the Glimmerglass Festival, TED, and TEDWomen. Her opera The Dawn of the Rooster toured internationally, and her original musical Africa My Beautiful (with Thuli Dumakude) ran off-Broadway at the Playroom Theatre. Dr. Tawengwa champions Indigenous Zimbabwean knowledge as a senior policy advisor to African governments; her cultural policy “Chimurenga ChePfungwa” has been adopted by the Office of the President of Zimbabwe, and she is a cultural consultant at Netflix. She founded the Mushandirapamwe Singers and Mushandirapamwe Arts Trust, and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Princeton University and the University of Kentucky respectively.

MUTUPO/BLOODLINEMUTUPO/BLOODLINE

CREATIVE TEAM

TANYARADZWA TAWENGWA - NZOU MAMBANO

MUTUPO/BLOODLINE