Makueni County will host the 96th edition of the Kenya Music and Cultural Festival (KMCF) today, Friday, at the Wote Technical Training Institute in Wote Town.
Makueni Director for Culture, Music, and the Arts, Mutua Mulonzya, said the festival seeks to enhance livelihoods and contribute to the realisation of country development through the promotion of cultural and creative industries.
“Also, part of the objective of the festivals is to entrench culture in climate action by enhancing the participation of communities in the preservation of the environment,” said Mulonzya on Thursday in Wote.
He added that the cultural music festivals will identify and safeguard Kenya’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
“The participants at the event include cultural organisations and groups, county choirs and county assembly choirs from 47 counties, water companies, parastatals, and national government agencies, and music clubs from TVET Institutes and Universities,” noted Mulonzya.
The presentations at the festivals will include music and dance consisting of vocal solos, duets, trios, quartets, small, standard and advanced choirs, folksongs and dances, instruments, live bands, and deejaying.
The artistic works at the event will also feature solo recitals, chanting, spoken word, sports commentating, and exhibitions of traditional medicine, traditional food, fashion design, music production, and visual arts—carvings, painting, pottery, basket weaving, and sculptures.
Theatre and film presentations at the event will include dramatised verse, dramatised dances, narratives, skits, plays, film monologues, comedies, puppetry, documentaries, reels, short and feature films, a phone film challenge, animation, and drama mashups,” added Mulonzya.
The festival is organised by the Ministry of Gender, Culture, the Arts, and Heritage in collaboration with Makueni County Government with the theme “Our Culture: Towards National Cohesion, Integration, and Peace”
By Ronald Rono
