Zambia’s Own Symphony? Ghibli Magic Shows What We’re Missing!

By Mwansa Chisanga

While our brothers in Malaysia are packing concert halls for Japanese anime music, Zambia sits silent. The Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra (MPO) just sold out nine straight shows of Symphonic Ghibli II in Kuala Lumpur. Over 8,100 people filled Dewan Filharmonik PETRONAS to hear the legendary Joe Hisaishi’s scores from Studio Ghibli films. And what did we get? Nothing. Not a single orchestra playing our own stories.

This is a wake-up call. If a foreign orchestra can sell out nine shows for music from another continent, imagine what we could do with our own Kalindula, our own traditional rhythms. But no. We let our culture rot while others celebrate theirs. It is time we,