Abdullah Ibrahim

Magician and jazz icon

Abdullah Ibrahim is a jazz icon and South Africa’s leading pianist. Born in a ghetto in Cape Town in 1934, Ibrahim left the country in the early 1960s, played with Duke Ellington and John Coltrane in the USA, and became a globally acclaimed musician and composer. He also remained an important musical and political voice in South Africa. His composition »Mannenberg« became an anthem of the anti-apartheid movement. Nelson Mandela, at whose inauguration in 1994 he played, described him as »our Mozart«.