ZIMBABWE Music Rights Association (Zimura) says it is worried over the low turnout of music composers and artistes compared to stakeholders who attended last week’s copyright awareness workshop in Gwanda, Matabeleland South province.
The workshop was meant to educate artistes and composers on copyrights issues and processes they should take to get registered with the organisation.
Zimura deputy director Henry Makombe told NewsDay Life & Style that although the workshop was a good start, their main target — musicians — did not turn up to get insights into issues of copyrights.
“Since this was our first workshop in Matabeleland South, the attendance was good compared to other provinces where we have had these workshops. It was okay, but we expected more music composers than other stakeholders,” he said.
“Stakeholders came out in numbers and also artistes in general. Talk of promoters, producers of music, yes they were here, but we really wanted the music composers and artistes to come.”
Makombe said maybe the low turnout could have been because artistes were not sure if the event was mainly organised for them.
“Maybe they did not show up since it was the first event ever to be held, people were not sure if it was going to be a success. We hope for a better turnout for the years to come since we are now making plans of building offices for artistes here in Gwanda,” he said.
“We are going to establish WhatsApp groups with the people who attended the workshop and we are going to spread information about our developments and progress here as we plan to get land to build an office for artistes.”
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Gwanda Municipality finance director Xolani Dube appealed to Zimura to invest in the Matabeleland South provincial capital so that it becomes a vibrant city, noting that there is plenty of land which is not being utilised at the moment.
“I would encourage or request those in the music industry to come to Gwanda. We still have plenty of land, we want people to have building structures, we want musicians to have premises and offices so that we give them the licences,” he said.
