Projects:

• Freedom Melody:

  Premiered in autumn 2025 at the Atrium, Lincoln Center in New York, USA:  co-commissioned by Lincoln Center, UCLA and University of Arizona, Freedom Melody was presented following 3-day residencies in three states and collaborative engagements with local vocal ensembles. The performance, featuring the reeds-led quartet or sextet (NYC), and a vocal ensemble, looks back at a particular moment in history, while celebrating the present and the future, and the unbreakable human spirit, creativity, and universal values.

  40 years ago in Gaborone, Botswana, April 1985 a Freedom Melody festival was held. Musicians based in Botswana as well as other parts of Southern Africa and from other locations converged for a memorable weekend of cultural events headlined by Hugh Masekela and Jonas Gwangwa. The repertoire performed included vocal and instrumental music that was symbolic of the liberation struggle. Through this festival the power of music to become a decisive unifying force for change became apparent.

  2 months later on June 14th 1985 the apartheid SADF (South African Defence Force) raided Gaborone killing 12 people. The cultural initiatives over a number of years by the Medu Art Ensemble collective (who had organized the festival) were abruptly terminated as a result.

  Conceptualized by Steve Dyer, who was part of the original Freedom Melody, the concert draws on the rich heritage of South and Southern African vocal and instrumental music within a contemporary setting. What does freedom mean and symbolize in our globalized and fractured world today? In Dyer’s vision, these performances are to be times of cultural intersection and celebration.

  Steve's show, Freedom Melody at the Atrium was nothing less than spectacular. The Young People's Chorus of NYC added value to the performance equation and brought another dimension to the work; an almost ethereal vibe that the chorus provided created a level of gravitas that resonated with profound spirituality.  It was quite a performance

  - Godfrey Palaia, Artistic Programming, Lincoln Center

  I found the concert captivating, entertaining and thought-provoking

  - audience member, The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music  

• Visions of Ubuntu:

  An evening of remembrance and jubilant celebration of the indomitable human spirit. Propelled by the courage of South Africa's indigenous youth, June of 1976 marked a pivotal point in the naSteve's show, Freedom Melody at the Atrium was nothing less than spectacular. The Young People's Chorus of NYC added value to the performance equation and brought another dimension to the work; an almost ethereal vibe that the chorus provided created a level of gravitas that resonated with profound spirituality. It was quite a performance.tional uprising against apartheid. Student revolutionaries protesting against Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in the classroom were met with deadly force by soldiers of the apartheid regime. Intergenerational leaders of the South African freedom struggle (including Mandela, Sobukwe, Tambo, and Biko) visualized a country where all people could live in harmony, drawing strength and inspiration from the traditional value system of ubuntu, embodying collectivism, harmony, and restorative justice. Nearly 50 years since the June 16 uprising and after 30 years of South African democracy, join us in recognizing ubuntu as a “life-philosophy concept" with the capacity to heal our troubled world.

  Premiered in June 2024 at Lincoln Center’s summer festival in New York, with an 8-piece band featuring Motswedi Modiba and Young People’s Chorus of New York City, the performance was staged at the Joy of Jazz Festival in Johannesburg, and featured Amazw8 Choir. The project will be on tour in June 2026, on the 50th anniversary of the Soweto uprising. The touring project is looking to collaborate with local vocal ensembles in short residencies and engage the community.

  See the video section below for more on Visions of Ubuntu and the making of the project

Recent Albums:

• Enhlizweni - song stories from my heartland:

  Winner of Best Jazz Album at SAMA Awards 2024, released in the year of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the first democratic elections in South Africa, Steve Dyer’s album Enhlizweni is a creative offering of how South Africa - a place where multiple musical energies co-exist - has shaped, and continues to shape Steve’s personal, and South African collective stories. “Almost all of us feel ties to the lands of our birth, and I’m no different. I was born in South Africa, a place where multiple musical energies exist in spiritual spaces, community get togethers, rituals, protests as well as dedicated performances. (…) Music in this country is most often a communal edeavour. I hope “ENHLIZWENI” can in some way contribute, in the words of freedom fighter Steve Biko, to ‘the great gift (that) still has to come from Africa – giving the world a more human face.” - Steve Dyer, liner notes

• Multipolar:

  Released on Ropeadope on 31 October 2025, it is Steve Dyer’s second release on an American label, and the 11th under his name. The title, “Multipolar”, refers to the global world shift from the falsehood perception of a unipolar power dynamic world to one with many centers of decentralized spheres of influence and power. The music on “Multipolar” reflects different elements of Steve Dyer’s cultural makeup as an Anglo-African. Born into, and influenced and shaped by Africa, this music originates here and casts its creative eyes outward to a global world of accessibility and connection. We all have our stories to tell, and we can all learn from each other’s stories. While the title track represents diversity of musical influence, a worldly groove going thru various ‘sections’, Dyer also remembers learning that multipolar neurons are nerve cells that carry messages all around the body enabling us to breathe, think eat.

  An in-depth review from Gwen Ansell can be read here, tracing Steve Dyer’s lineage and placing the music in the wide, worldly and historical context:

  Dyer’s contemplative, yearning saxophone tone does signal a lineage from late-60s releases such as Kulu se Mama – a flavour often underlined by Siphelelo Mazibuko’s precise classicism on drums – but Multipolar is absolutely not American, copycat or retro. Rather, where the spirit of Trane comes into the picture is in the album’s mood and philosophical underpinnings. For Trane, it was South Asian spirituality that provided a wellspring of inspiration; for Dyer it’s a deep exploration of ubuntu. The music’s world-view reaches beyond bland Africa-washing to a centering of shared humanity and rejection of commodification and the alienation of people from the land and the other living creatures of our earth - Gwen Ansell

  Multipolar feels like a unified suite of stories, a vibrant blend of identities carried by Dyer’s unmistakable sonic spine - UKVibe

music samples: