Biographies
Claude Cozens
Cozens graduated from the University of Bergen in Norway with a Master's degree in music and is currently an Adjunct Faculty member at New York University Abu Dhabi. He is multi-instrumentalist with roots in improvised music from South Africa. His first loved instrument is the piano, and he plays solo piano concerts regularly, adding depth and nuance to his drumming.
Cozens employs sentimental melodies and goema rhythms, dominant idioms in Cape jazz, in beautifully creative ways. His melodies lend themselves to modal exploration; his rhythms break up and fit themselves perfectly back together like puzzle pieces. With partners Shepherd and bassist Benjamin Jephtha, Cozens uses the historic language of Cape jazz to engage in some very fresh conversations. Renowned for his distinctive, open-style percussive drumming technique, Cozens is at the forefront of a new generation of rising talent who, according to arts journalist Atiyyah Khan, are trying to carve their own path in South Africa.
Claude has expanded his performance career to include music education by working with students from all over the world who live in the United Arab Emirates. Cozens’ compelling energy and drumming inventiveness have seen him perform with a wide array of artists like Hilton Schilder, Herbie Tsoaeli, Ghazi Faisal Al-Mulaifi, Jean-Michel Pilc, Mark Fransman, Feya Faku, Arturo O'Farrill, Andre Petersen, Kyle Shepherd, Bokani Dyer, Darren English, Neo Muyanga, Nduduzo Makhathini, Zoe Modiga, Buddy Wells, Keenen Ahrends, Mandla Mlangeni, Sisonke Xonti, Magne Thormodsaeter, Seigo Matsunaga, and more. During his professional career, he has performed at numerous venues and major festivals in South Africa and around the world.
Kyle Shepherd
Kyle Shepherd is one of South Africa’s leading pianists and film and theater music composers of his generation, and is internationally recognised for his distinctive compositional style and performance. He was the Standard Bank Young Artist of the Year for Jazz in 2014 and the UNISA piano competition winner in 2019, and has performed in 29 countries around the world, including 11 concert tours to Japan.
He has released seven jazz albums to date with an impressive number of film, television, and theater score credits. These include Unseen, season 1 (reached #3 on Netflix's global ranking for April 2023), Blood and Water, season 2 (Netflix), Savage Beauty, season 1 (Netflix), Surviving Paradise, as additional music composer (Netflix), Indemnity and Barakat, South Africa’s official entry into the 2022 Academy Awards and winner for Best Score at the 2022 Silwerskerm Film Festival, Fiela se Kind (2019), also winner for Best Score at the 2020 Silwerskerm Film Festival, Vlugtig (Kyknet) and Noem My Skollie (Call Me Thief), South Africa’s official entry to the 2017 Academy Awards. He was awarded the 2018 South African Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) Award: Book, Creative Collection and Digital Contribution 2018, hosted by the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), for Best Musical Composition for his score for Noem My Skollie. Shepherd is also the co-creator of the hit Afrikaans television show, Koortjies with Jonathan Rubain (Kyknet).
Along with multiple SAFTA, SAMA and Silwerskerm nominations, he was most recently nominated for a Fleur du Cap Best Sound Design, Original Music, Soundscape or Live Performance award for Lara Foot’s award-winning Life & Times of Michael K. The production, adapted for the stage by Foot and the world renowned Handspring Puppet Company, is based on the Nobel prize-winning novel by J.M Coetzee and won the Fleur du Cap award for best theater production in 2023. Kyle also composed the score for Foot’s reimagining of Shakespeare’s Othello, which was commissioned and premiered at the D-Haus Theatre, Dusseldorf, Germany, in 2022.
Kyle has just completed a celebrated run of performances at the Theatre de Chatelet in Paris and The Sydney Opera House. Kyle continues international touring with Waiting for the Sibyl, a chamber opera created in collaboration with world renowned visual artist William Kentridge and co-composer Nhlanhla Mhlangu. The opera won the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award (2023) in the UK. The 36-year old Shepherd holds a Masters degree (Cum Laude) in Music upon receiving a scholarship from York University (UK) in collaboration with the Africa Open Institute (Stellenbosch University).
Benjamin Jephta
Bassist and composer Benjamin Jephta (30) has made a name for himself as one of South Africa’s premier double and electric bass players. A graduate of the jazz program at the University of Cape Town in 2013, he has performed both nationally and internationally since the age of 14, and has worked with notable South African jazz musicians including Hugh Masekela, Sibongile Khumalo, and many others. With two albums as a bandleader, multiple award nominations and wins, Jephta, the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans list recipient, also received the prestigious Standard Bank Young Artist for Jazz award in 2017.
Benjamin regularly sessions with various South African hip-hop and pop artists, as well as on TV programs including The Voice SA, Dancing with the Stars SA, and musical directs the ‘late night’ show The Bantu Hour on SABC 2. After graduating from The Berklee Global Jazz Institute in Boston, USA, with a Masters degree, he moved to New York City where he has since performed with Danilo Perez, Terri-lyne Carrington, Jason Palmer, and Dianne Reeves among others. He is currently based in Johannesburg, working as a performer, film/TV composer, and lecturing in Jazz Studies and Film Composition at the University of Witwatersrand.
Ghazi Faisal Al-Mulaifi
Ghazi Faisal Al-Mulaifi, PhD (b. 1977) is an applied-ethnomusicologist and professor of music who earned his Doctorate of Philosophy in Music from New York University (2016). Al-Mulaifi is also a Venice Biennale artist, composer, global jazz musician, and founder of the collaborative ensemble Boom.Diwan. His research interests include: The Kuwaiti Sea Arts, cosmopolitanism in the Western Indian Ocean Music Worlds, global jazz, and the tensions between traditional-practice, and heritage production.
Tonatiut Zardón
Tonatiut is an experienced and versatile musician, composer, and musical director who has an international career. He is most recognised as a trumpet player; however, he is also skilled in flügelhorn and harmonica. Furthermore, he is a dedicated music teacher with outstanding success amongst his pupils. As a performer, he plays all genres from jazz and pop to traditional Cuban and Latin-American music with ease, and has shared the stage with international music stars. As a recording artist, he has participated in over 50 albums with musicians from all over the world, bringing his geniality to interpret diverse musical genres and his exquisite musical taste. His most recent endeavor is as the musical director of the What's On nominee Jazz Club "Jass Lounge" in Dubai, where he directs and curates the shows and invites artists of exquisite and unique talent.
