vuyo viwe

Vuyo Tshwele (aka vuyo viwe) is a 25-year-old flautist, composer and vocalist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Freshly-minted in the jazz scene, she has shared the stage with various classical and jazz acts, including Kujenga, Internet Athi, The Brother Moves On, ft. Hymnself and Sisonke Xonti.

Vuyo viwe’s sound is a mix of South African traditional song form, orchestral folk, with alternative vocal melodies, blending electronic sounds with classical instruments with the rawness of uhadi sensibilities and ngoma time signatures and dissonance.

Vuyo viwe had the privilege of performing in celebrated spaces such as YoungBlood, The Chairman, Untitled Basement, Baxter Theatre, The Homecoming Theatre, as well as being a feature in the THAT Tuesday Funk jam session house band. She has since held a 3-day residency at Nirox Sculpture Park under the collective ft. Hymnself, all before her sold-out debut performance as a solo act at Mamakashaka and Friends. Vuyo viwe is set to perform at Kids Love

Jazz and Umanyano Lwe Jazz, amongst much-anticipated solo performances.

Vuyo viwe has featured in mixed creative outputs, including recording flute and vocals for Internet Athi’s Wena and Nguwe; supporting Thandi Nqanda’s No Time To Mourn; featuring in BET Africa’s soon-coming Echoes of Tomorrow documentary and Archive’s Spaces That Feel Like Home campaign. She also composed, performed and recorded the film score for Nomandla Vilakazi’s documentary, Ode to Sara, that has since screened at the Labia Theatre, Iziko Museums of South Africa, The Commons and Raw Film Festival. Ode to Sara also won the Best Documentary Short Film prize at the festival.

Vuyo viwe has also curated commissioned tracks for the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation’s A Queer South Africa project, and is completing a soundscape inspired by the Namib desert for Raul Jorge Gourgel’s upcoming visual installation.

Rooted in the philosophy of “afroesoterism”, vuyo viwe explores the sonics of Blackness, of Womanness, of resilience, and of an (un)becoming.

With a background in Western Classical Music and Psychology, vuyo viwe is completing a Masters in Music Therapy - an amalgamation of all the things that keep her in her purpose: to create, share, learn, reach, and heal.