Samuel Mhasvi, a senior at Lander University with a double major in music and visual arts with a graphic design emphasis, has had a strong interest in music since he was a young boy in his native Zimbabwe. He plays the euphonium and other brass instruments, including trumpet, trombone, alto horn and tuba, but his first love is the euphonium, a valved instrument, which is known in music as "the king of band instruments."
Mhasvi will demonstrate his musical talents when he appears in a Senior Recital on Tuesday, March 31, at 8 p.m., in the Josephine B. Abney Cultural Center Auditorium.
Mhasvi said his parents encouraged him and his sister, Rumbi, to study music but it was Rumbi who had the greatest influence on him. She played piano and trumpet and, hearing her practice so frequently at home, prompted his interest in music.
He obtained most of his early music experience playing with Salvation Army bands in Zimbabwe and Malawi. He enrolled at Lander in 2010 with financial assistance from the Mufuka Scholarship and, not long after arriving, he was introduced to the Greenwood Salvation Army Band and plays in that group every Sunday and on other occasions. He also teaches youngsters to play brass instruments at the Salvation Army's Camp Walter Johnson in Denton, N.C.
Of all the brass instruments he is able to play, why did he decide to specialize in the euphonium? Mhasvi responds, "Its an instrument I truly love. I love the beauty of its sound."
Segments of his recital on March 31 will feature members of the Greenwood Salvation Army Band along with other Lander music students. On some selections, he will be accompanied by Lander staff accompanist Amy Blackwood. Donald Mack, an adjunct member of Lander's music faculty, is Mhasvi's instructor.
The program will include performances of the Scottish folksong, "Bluebells of Scotland;" "Beautiful Colorado;" and "Euphonium Concerto" by Joseph Horovitz. Mhasvi will also perform "Benedictus," by Karl Jenkins, arranged by Andrew Wainwright, a composer and arranger and a friend since their boyhood days together in Zimbabwe.
The recital is free and open to the public.