Tonight two master musicians will transport you to Africa with sacred mbira music used by the Shona people of Zimbabwe in ceremonies for over a millennium. The mbira, made of two dozen metal keys mounted on a wood soundboard inside a resonating calabash gourd and played with the thumbs, produces music that combines entrancing melodies with invigorating polyphony and polyrhythms.

Caution Shonhai is an mbira player from Nyamweda a rural area of Zimbabwe renowned for its mbira players and makers. Following Shona traditions passed on for generations in his family, Caution is a traditional healer, herbalist, and the medium of his great-grandfather's spirit, allowing him to play in the wonderful style of this great mbira player grandfather. An international performer with CDs published in the United States, Australia, and Israel, Caution enjoys sharing Shona traditions including music he holds sacred (mbira, singing, drumming, hosho rattles), dance, and culture.

Berkeley's Erica Azim fell in love with Shona mbira music when she first heard it at the age of 16. In 1974, she became one of the first Americans to study mbira in Zimbabwe, and her teachers have included many of Zimbabwe's top mbira masters past and present, including Forward Kwenda, with whom she has appeared on the Freight stage. Erica currently records, performs, and leads mbira workshops throughout the U.S. and directs the non-profit organization MBIRA, which provides financial support to Zimbabwean mbira players and instrument makers.

Visit Mbira.org

Listen to a track from Caution Shonhai & Erica Azim: