Marriage, drug abuse themes take centre stage at music festival

Calls for stable marriages and end to drug abuse took centre stage as song and dance continued to reverberate at the 96th edition of the Kenya Music Festivals in Eldoret.

A deluge currently pounding Eldoret could not halt the party as students participating in the national extravaganza warmed the hearts of adjudicators with unrivaled energy and creativity on the stage.

When time for folk songs came, Teachers Training Colleges (TTCs) doled out tunes that promoted societal norms.

Kitui TTC stole the show with Nziye Mutwawa, a Kamba folk song that advises young couples to maintain stable marriages.

Under the guidance of Abraham Mutula, Kitui TTC’s Nziye Mutwawa, sang during Akamba wedding ceremonies, emerged overall winner, with a 90 per cent mark in the category.

Mutula said the participants scored highly for choice of song, which he said was themed on educating young men and women on the values that keep marriages stable and hence strengthen morality in society.

“We got our costumes from the community where the song originated from. We also got the right soloist and everything went as planned during the stage performance,” the trainer said after they lifted the trophy.

With the 90 per cent score, Kitui TTC had met the basic qualification of performing at the festival’s gala set for Tuesday.

Mutula said his folk song participants were happy to have won and taught society the value of happy marriages.

Nziye Mutwawa encourages young women to contribute to the creation of wealth and to take care of property at their marital homes.

“Our instrumentation was perfect and our ending climax was powerful. We are hopeful that we will emerge the overall winner once again,” the trainer said.

Kitui had won in the class from 2012 to 2018 before losing to Meru TTC in 2019. They have also been the overall winner of colleges from 2017 to 2019 and following yesterday’s win in the folk songs category, Kitui TTC was hopeful of reclaiming the trophy. 

“Marriage is a common factor in our society and advice is necessary. It encourages the young woman take care of the family property and her home,” Mutula said about the song. 

He said the college’s chief principal Gerald Mutegi ensured participants were facilitated and had adequate time to prepare for the contest.

Ofafa Jericho High School from Nairobi also impressed with Mwili Wangu (My Body), a song against drug abuse among teenagers.

The Ofafa Jericho school song was full of lyrics that discourage the youth from peer influence.

Tujiepushe marafiki wapotofu (let us keep off bad influencers), Uraibu wao dawa za kulevya (they are addicted to drugs) and Tusidanganywe na Habari potofu (Let us not be misled by misleading information), were some of the lyrics in the song.

Ofafa Jericho trainer and teacher of Kiswahili Irene Maneno, said the preparations were adequate and were hoping to shine in their class.

Alliance Girls, Moi Girls and Kianda School Nairobi were among schools which presented brilliant performances in the string ensemble class. They delivered night music, peasants dance and take five classical music respectively.

Baba Dogo Secondary school’s Geoffrey Otieno spectacularly won Clarinet solo class with 93 per cent.

Otieno, an orphan, impressed adjudicators with his brilliant use of clarinet while performing Csardas, a classical music.

“Last year, I didn’t qualify for the national festivals but I reached the regional stage where I finished fifth in the class. I hope to impress at the gala and state concert,” he said.