Description
Thembi Dunjana is an award winning Cape Town pianist, singer and composer, and one of the most distinctive voices in the city’s jazz scene. Both of her albums have won Mzantsi Jazz Awards, the second of them recorded in New York, and she has taken the music to stages in America and Europe. Her sound starts in black indigenous music and moves into contemporary culture. In her own words, “culture is continuously changing, and the music should also be doing the same”.
SeekArt presents Thembi Dunjana at Cape Town Jazz Club on Sunday 29 November. Two sets with her quartet, including unreleased music from the next record.
She started on piano at eleven, and went on to a BMus in jazz performance and a master’s in music at the University of Cape Town, emerging as a pianist and a vocalist at the same time.
Her debut album Intyatyambo arrived in 2020 and took two Mzantsi Jazz Awards, for Best Song and Best Female in Jazz. Her second, God Bless iKapa. God Bless Mzantsi., was recorded in New York and released under AfricArise in 2024, and won Best Contemporary Jazz Album at the 9th Mzantsi Jazz Awards in 2025.
The influences are wide and worn openly: the Wassoulou music of Oumou Sangaré, John Coltrane, and Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah. What comes out of that is music built on rhythmic displacement and a hip-hop ear, grounded in Xhosa song, and unmistakably hers.
She has played Jazz at Lincoln Center twice, in 2023 and 2025, at Dizzy’s Club, the Bird’s Eye in Basel, and the Cape Town International Jazz Festival in 2025. Between those stages she teaches at Open Studio, the online jazz school based in St. Louis, and is widely known for her jazz piano tutorials on YouTube.
This show brings new material. Alongside the albums, Thembi is playing music that has not been released yet, with Uviwe Caso on guitar, Clayton Pretorius on bass and Kurt Bowers on drums.
Sunday 29 November 2026
Cape Town Jazz Club, Bokeh, 11 Warwick Street, Claremont
19:00 Doors
20:00 First set
21:15 Second set
22:00 Finish
General admission: R200
Students: R150, limited to 30, student card required at the door
Early bird: R150, first 10 tickets only
