The Santa Clarita Master Chorale, the Santa Clarita Valley’s premiere choral group, will perform ‘Zimbe! Come Sing The Songs of Africa’ under the direction of Allan Robert Petker on Sunday, June 5 at 4:00 p.m. at the Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center at College of the Canyons.

Performed for over 1,500 enthusiastic crowds, Alexander L’Estrange Zimbe! Come Sing The Songs of Africa is the composer’s most popular body of work and also established him as one of Britain’s most popular living choral composers. L’Estrange, an incorrigible former choirboy with a jazz musician’s heart, has written an ebullient cantata that is brilliant fusion of traditional African song and jazz.

For Zimbe! Come Sing The Songs of Africa, The Santa Clarita Master Chorale welcomes two outstanding guest musicians who bring an incredible level of talent to this performance. Percussionist Oliver C. Brown, who has worked with KC and the Sunshine Band, Al Jarreau, Fleetwood Mac, Leo Sayer and Nancy Wilson. Multi-instrumentalist George Makinto, who has performed for Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II, will bring his effervescent flute playing and drumming to this entertaining concert.

For the first half of the concert, the Santa Clarita Children’s Choir, under the direction of Jennifer Brown, will perform several African songs they have mastered, among them the gentle “Thula Klizeo,” a song about homesickness and comfort written by Joseph Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Songs from Zimbe! Come Sing The Songs of Africa are melodic and easily learned, arising from a generations-deep tradition of musical storytelling, sharing those characteristics with folk traditions the world over. They will sing about the highs of a wedding celebration then explore cultural oppression.

This music is life in all its abundant troubles and blessings, and throughout the concert the Santa Clarita Master Chorale will embrace themes that range from a Ghanaian playground song about a hawk, to a lullaby for mothers of imprisoned sons from the Xhosa people of eastern South Africa.

For more information, visit http://www.scmasterchorale.org/.