The founder and the chief executive officer of the Eastern Cape Jazz Festival, Lindi Ntloko, has confirmed that the event will be hosted this year at the Mthatha Country Club on Friday, December 3.
Ntloko said they had collaborated with the Nelson Mandela Museum, with the aim of celebrating the life of the late Nelson Mandela, since he passed away on December 5, 2013.
According to Ntloko, they started hosting the festival in 2019 in East London, but this year they had chosen to host it in Mthatha to celebrate the life of Mandela.
“On the second (of December), we will be visiting the heritage sites related to Nelson Mandela, like the Clarkebury area.
“Then, on December 3, we will host this Festival.
“We are calling it Eastern Cape Jazz Festival in Remembrance of Nelson Mandela.
“We are expecting people from all the provinces of South Africa.
“Mandela and other icons played a major role in our lives and that is why it is important to always remember their legacy.
“We host this event in September to celebrate Heritage Month, but due to the numbers that are allowed to attend the events (due to COVID-19), we decided to host it next month (instead).
“We then thought of what we could do when hosting it; that is why we then took a decision to remember this icon,” said Ntloko.
He added that they would host it again next year, but he is not sure about the venue, since the province of the Eastern Cape is so large.
He confirmed that they would make sure that their visitors from other areas visit Mthatha in order to see the heritage of Mandela.
