At Brett Bailey’s The Routes of Sound at Spier this winter, audiences will wander between spaces to encounter musicians up close and discover artists whose music refuses easy categorisation. Among them is Tubatsi Mpho Moloi, the Soweto-born singer, multi-instrumentalist, and storyteller whose performances invite listeners to travel without leaving their seats.
Tubatsi does not think in genres. Ask him to describe his music, and he speaks instead about world music and movement: from Soweto to Cape Town, from Africa to Spain, from memory to imagination. One moment, a melody may feel rooted in South African folk traditions; the next, a pentatonic phrase may transport listeners somewhere entirely different.
“It asks the audience to keep an open mind,” he says. “There’s a lot of travelling within those soundscapes.”
That philosophy makes him a natural fit for Brett Bailey’s The Routes of Sound at Spier Wine Farm, which returns this year in an expanded format over three winter weekends. Rather than sitting through a conventional concert, audiences move between venues scattered across the estate, encountering different musicians in intimate settings before gathering for a final collective performance.
For Tubatsi, that unpredictability is part of the attraction. “These are the things that excite me because they’re done out of the norm,” he says. “Every group that comes in will feel different. I get to connect with audiences in a different way every time.”
His path into music was not a conventional one. Before performing professionally, he worked in banking and had little reason to think music would one day take him around the world. A role in the musical Umoja set him on a different course, leading to international tours and creative collaborations that continue to inform his work.
Travel has become an education in itself. Whether performing in Mexico, collaborating with French musicians in Japan, or learning from artists at the Nirox Foundation, Tubatsi collects sounds, instruments, and stories wherever he goes. Those experiences filter into performances that can include guitar, flute, mbira, voice loops, and improvised layers built in real time.
At Spier, he will perform solo, moving between instruments and creating entire sound worlds on his own.
What audiences should expect, however, is not virtuosity for its own sake.
The Routes of Sound is built on listening. It is an invitation to slow down, wander, and encounter South African music in a setting that encourages curiosity rather than consumption.
Tubatsi hopes audiences leave with something simpler still. “Joy,” he says. “A feeling of positivity. I hope people take home an open-mindedness from the inspiration that comes with the music.”
On a winter evening at Spier, that may be the greatest luxury of all: the opportunity to surrender to sound and allow yourself to be transported somewhere unexpected.
- The Routes of Sound takes place at Spier Wine Farm on selected dates from 3 July to 22 August. Tickets cost R300, including wine tastings. Full details are here, and bookings are via Webtickets.
