AVAF live in South Africa! Report!

The music of AVAF has more than twenty years of history in South Africa. Especially the black community in the townships has embraced this special kind of music. We have been told, that almost every household in Soweto owns at least one album or cassette of the Vollenweider-music. To our surprise, this music was particularly popular during the times of enormous social tension, before the end of apartheid; some of the songs like “pearls & tears“ from the album „dancing with the lion“ were even sung in the streets as gathering songs...
Despite the fact, that this now lays many years back, it is no wonder that these two concerts in Capetown and Johannesburg have attracted the audience as well as the media. In both of the concerts, the audience seemed to be very familiar even with the songs of the newer albums. The atmosphere was very moving; it seemed, as if the music finally came "home".
However, this was just the prelude for more concerts to come in the near future, this time in some of the townships and in larger venues, providing access to the whole range of the South African audience.
Especially in these times of massive violent conflicts, South Africa has a significant message to the world; the concrete proof of a society, highly successful in non-violent conflict management, confronted with the most complex political and social problems!
Special guest this time was South African multi-instrumentalist Pops Mohammed, well known and respected around the world for his tireless efforts to promote the historic richness of the African music. He introduced his many special African sound flavors to the Vollenweider-sound.
Andreas Vollenweider And Friends was received by an open audience and the warm, emotional and enthusiastic atmosphere of this first visit will certainly continue to resonate for a long time...