The first South African signed to Blue Note is playing Skopje. Nduduzo Makhathini performs on 17 October at the National Opera and Ballet, with the quintet of Macedonian bassist and vocalist Andrea Mirceska opening the evening. Tickets are 800 denars, doors at 20:00.

Makhathini is a pianist, composer and university professor - he heads the music department at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape. His musical language ties the spiritual American tradition of John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner to Zulu folk music and Afro-Cuban rhythms. He has released four albums for Blue Note, from his 2020 debut "Modes of Communication" onwards, and has played with Wynton Marsalis and Shabaka Hutchings. His latest record, "The Myth We Choose", came out in June 2026 and was co-produced with his son Tingo.

Andrea Mirceska was born in 1998 and belongs to Macedonia's contemporary improvisation scene. In 2019 she took the "Golden Oryx" award for best young jazz musician, and she has appeared on around a dozen releases. Her quintet is Ninoslav Spirovski on saxophones, Blagojce Tomevski on bass clarinet, Filip Bukrsliev on guitar and Dragan Teodosiev on percussion. The "Lullaby for Lunatics" programme mixes her own compositions with reinterpretations.

Makhathini says regularly that a performance is a ritual for him, one that demands real participation from the audience rather than mere attendance. That is more than a line when it comes from the musician who first pushed open the door of the most famous jazz label for a South African artist. Tickets are 800 denars through mktickets.mk, or as part of the festival pass.