Survé trumpets way for fest

• Published date: 04 May 2024
• Author: Venecia Valentine
• Publication title: Weekend Argus

After a four-year hiatus, Africa’s Grandest Gathering lived up to its name once again

Dr Iqbal Survé, chairperson of the Sekunjalo Group, along with his family rubbed shoulders with the artists ahead of the show yesterday.

The Survé family met the artists at Hotel Sky in the CBD.

Survé also made a special announcement where he said the family is committing to giving R100 million to the CTIJF for a further three years.

His announcement was met by cheers and applause from guests in attendance. “The festival has been owned by the Survé family since 2007. We’ve had amazing artists here from all over the world and we had a break because of Covid-19.

“The family is committing another R100m to the festival for the next three years. What’s often not known about what we’re doing in music is that we fund 80 schools, teachers and instruments, we have the edu-jazz band, we fund the master classes. We’ve sent a lot of young South Africans and Africans on music scholarships, etc.

“So this has happened for about 15 years as a family. We’re very committed to arts and culture and the festival for us is not a business to be frank, it’s running amazingly well, but for us, it’s a philanthropic endeavour where we want to give back to music.

“You want to continue to promote South African artists, African artists, integrate with the community and the festival is so highly ranked; next year we are twinning with another major festival in the world. So we can have a stage there and they are going to have a stage here.

“But we are so happy to have all of your artists here, I must...