SA bids farewell to jazz great Hotep Galeta

Hotep Galeta (1941 - 2010)

By the Bush Radio’s News Team
03 November 2010

South African jazz musician, Professor Hotep Idris Galeta passed away this morning.

He died of an asthma attack at his Johannesburg home.

Professor Galeta was born on the 7th of June 1941 and dedicated most of his life as a jazz pianist and teacher.

He left South Africa in 1961, following many other South African performers to the United Kingdom and later moved to the United States.

He returned to South Africa in 1991 after the end of the apartheid era.

Galeta played with the likes of John Handy, Herb Alpert and South Africa’s greats Adbullah Ibrahim and Hugh Masekela.

In 1985 he was invited to teach at The Hartt School of the University of Hartford where he taught until his return to South Africa.

He also taught at the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape and helped to start the Miriam Makeba Performing Arts Centre in East London and recently another centre with Hugh Masekela in Johannesburg.

ESP Afrika’s Rashied Lombard said, “The loss of Professor Hotep Galeta is certainly a big loss to the music and jazz fraternity in South Africa.”

“He was instrumental in setting up the first workshops in early 2001 at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival,”

“We mourn his passing as an educator and as a close friend,” Lombard said.

UPDATE: Read the Bush Radio Blog post on the passing of Hotep Galeta (with audio)