Cara Stacey

Cara Stacey is a South African musician, composer and researcher. She is a pianist and plays southern African musical bows (umrhubhe, uhadi, makhweyane). Cara holds a Masters in Musicology (Edinburgh), a MMus in Performance from SOAS (London). As a Commonwealth Scholar, she completed her PhD through the University of Cape Town and SOAS (London). Her doctoral research investigated practice and innovation in the music of the makhweyane musical bow in the Kingdom of eSwatini (formerly Swaziland). Cara is currently an ACLS African Humanities Programme postdoctoral fellow.

Beyond her solo performance and composition work, Cara collaborates with percussionist and drummer Sarathy Korwar in the project Pergola and is a member of the Night Light Collective. Her debut album Things that grow features Shabaka Hutchings, Seb Rochford, Ruth Goller, and Crewdson (2015, Kit Records). Her latest album, Ceder, is of her duo project with Peruvian flutist and composer Camilo Ángeles (2018, Kit Records). Cara has performed across southern Africa, in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Peru, the USA and Switzerland with the likes of Shabaka Hutchings, Sarathy Korwar, Dan Leavers, Galina Juritz, Natalie Mason, Beat Keller, Matchume Zango, Jason Singh and Juliana Venter.

Cara is the founder of the Betwixt concert series with cellist Nicola du Toit. She sits on the executive committee for the South African Society for Research in Music and is the International Council for Traditional Music country liaison office for the kingdom of eSwatini. She is based between Johannesburg and Mbabane.