Murmures

Lake of Stars Festival continues bringing to light different activities ahead of its main event in September at Sunbird Nkopola in Mangochi with the latest announcement being that they will hold a children’s festival at Sunbird Capital Hotel in Lilongwe in June.

Lake of Stars Festival Founder Will Jameson revealed this on Friday during a launch party at Mibawa Café in Blantyre. This was the last launch party for the organisers having also held the parties in Mzuzu and Lilongwe.

“We want to give a chance to children to showcase their talent and so in partnership with Unicef Malawi we will be holding a children’s festival on June 14. There will be lots of activities during this day where children will showcase their talent in poetry, drama, drawing, music and there will also be activities like face painting,” said Jameson.

The children’s festival will follow the Lilongwe Shorts Film Festival which was also held recently in Lilongwe where film makers were decorated with awards. He revealed that they will also screen some of the movies during the festival in Mangochi.

“We want people to know that as Lake of Stars we are serious and we are here to help uplift arts in the country. So we would want to have children and their families patronise the children’s festival,” he said.

He also said they will also be holding another event on July 11 as they are working with Mount Mulanje Porters Race.

“As I said there is a lot that we have on the ground ahead of the main festival on September 25-27. We are also selling the early bird tickets and we urge people to buy because after this promotion the fee will go up. We also have partnered with Airtel Malawi,” said Jameson.

He said he was satisfied with the launch parties as well as the Blantyre party.

Airtel Malawi Marketing Manager – Airtel Money Masiye Mazaza said they were happy to partner with Lake of Stars organisers.

“We have partnered with Lake of Stars and pumped in money towards the festival and this just shows our commitment to assisting in uplifting arts in the country. There is a lot which we will offer on the ground as Airtel,” said Mazaza.

The Blantyre party attracted a sizeable audience and saw performances from among others Lloyd Phaundi also known as Agorosso, who impressed on the night.

Agorosso’s act was more like a rehearsal for him as he is set to leave for Budapest, Hungary on Wednesday for performances. He performed with his longtime colleague on percussions Anthony Supriano and a lead guitarist forming a three man team.

“I am happy to perform here and this acts like a rehearsal for me ahead of my performance in Hungary,” said the artist, who offered several songs including ‘Folly,’ and ‘Dalitsani Malawi.’

However, there were some technical glitches which affected performances on the night hosted by Mphatso Chaluluka and removed the tempo of the sets with Dan Lufani, who closed the chapter, the heavily affected.

Just after jumping on stage, the drums experienced a problem and Dan Lu had to leave the stage to pave way for engineers to work on the drums before coming back.

The organisers also goofed on starting music and then later poetry by poet Yankho Seunda. This saw people making noise during Seunda’s act with some of them already drunk and wanted to party. Seunda, however, braved the noise and continued to recruit two poems.

The other act on the night came from upcoming artist Bucci.