Nduduzo Makhathini is a South African composer, pianist and scholar. His sound is shaped by the folk music of the Zulu people, with a melodic lineage of Abdullah Ibrahim and pianistic influences from McCoy Tyner. At the moment, he is one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary jazz. Makhathini built an extensive catalogue independently and through different labels before making his international breakthrough and signing with Blue Note in 2020. Since then, he has released four albums through Blue Note, collaborating with artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Shabaka Hutchings, WDR Big Band and Black Coffee, to name just a few. For Makhathini, a performance is a ritual that demands real engagement from the audience. With that in mind, he continues to fill concert venues and festivals around the world. His latest album, “The Myth We Choose”, released in June this year and co-produced with his son Thingo, merges spirit-seeking American jazz with the most distinctive traits of South African jazz and the galvanizing rhythms of Afro-Cuban music, taking his music further into the contemporary sounds of the modern jazz world. With a voice that is unmistakably his own, Makhathini will bring his music and its spiritual dimension to the stage of the 45th Skopje Jazz Festival.