NORTON – The 22nd December is one of the highlights in our calendar at Pakare Paye Arts Centre when we put the icing on the cake, as it were, on all our artistic work and productions for the year.

And we do this in quite a unique way every year to make the day more enjoyable and fun-filled.

Pakare Paye Solo Fest, now in its third year, was conceptualized by Oliver Mtukudzi who also founded this state-of-the-art academy here.

This year the Solo Fest has a line-up of the heavies never seen before sharing the stage and SOLO it would make any arts buffs and fans drool over the festival.

And there is a line-up of the rising stars - the young guys of the moment - to savour on this fine day and SOLO again. There is dance, poetry, drama…SOLO also.

Of interest, too, is that we have re-branded the Solo Fest making it a fun-filled day attracting multitudes of different tastes of art forms from different music genres to dance, poetry to drama etcetera.

To ensure this happens in a fairly massive way we have friends supporting the event who we shall soon unveil including the line-up of artists and other pertinent detail.

But critically the Solo fest brings out the best in the individual artist whether instrumentally, lyrically, vocally or through other forms of the performing arts.

The fest helps, and in so many ways too, the individual artist grow and nurture self-confidence performing without the usual backing in a group – ndega zvangu, kind of thing.

Please watch this space as we release more information in this run up to the festival. – Shepherd Mutamba / tukumusik.com