Nairobi Orchestra accompanied by Sibi Okumu

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Nairobi Orchestra accompanied by Sibi Okumu

Friday 25 March 2022

Sibi Okumu with Kevin Kimani and Joan Wahome at Kenya Theater Awards. PHOTO | MARGARETTA WA GACHERU | NMG

If there were an award for the longest running number one Performer ‘par excellence’ in Kenya then John Sibi Okumu would have to be the top contender for the award.

We’ve seen him shine on cable and old-fashioned TV networks, in award-winning movies like The constant gardener and the first graderand on stage in roles as challenging as Othello, Romeo and King Oedipus, and as amusing as the King in Eric Wainaina’s Tinga Tinga Tales†

Most recently we saw him in the new ShowMax series, Crime and Justice where he plays a corrupt seedy lawyer named Barasa.

But that’s just the beginning of everything he’s accomplished over the decades. What about The topthat groundbreaking TV show where Sibi interviewed all kinds of prominent personalities such as the Aga Khan, Uhuru Kenyatta, Prof. Peter Anyang Nyong’o, late Prof. Wangari Maathai and Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

He went on to talk to many more guiding lights after he started The JSO show for Kiss TV.

There have also been numerous UN and NGO conferences that he has moderated, mainly in Kenya, but a few have taken him abroad.

He often moderated both in English and French on those occasions.

And don’t forget his more than 25 years of teaching French in some of Kenya’s most prestigious secondary schools.

He also judged numerous French plays performed by French-speaking students at the annual French Drama Festival.

His linguistic talents also meant that he was often called upon to take on the role of a bilingual translator, sometimes with documentaries or TV advertisements in both French and English, and occasionally advertisements in English and Swahili.

He also worked with Ketubul Music and did bilingual voiceovers for their music videos

Sibi’s theatrical talents have never lost their place in his busy interdisciplinary career.

In addition to acting, he has also directed a number of plays, including Eric Wainaina Mo Faya which was so successful that he had to escort the musical all the way to New York, where the show was staged Off Broadway!

Then there is the other side of Sibi Okumu. That is the playwright whose last six plays were recently composed and published in a volume entitled Collected plays 2004†2014†

In it, Sibi attempted to gradually examine the lives and times of everyday Kenyans in a manner similar to how the black American playwright August Wilson sought to question the lives and problems of ordinary black Americans in plays such as fences and The black underside of Ma Rainey.

It is no wonder that Sibi has become an award winner of late, with no less than three lifetime achievement awards, one at the Sondeka Festival in 2017, another from the Sanaa Theater Festival in 2019 and one in 2020 in Tunisia at the Carthage International Theater Festival.

Back in the 20^e century, he was awarded a Mbalamwezi Prize for Distinguished Service, and most recently received the World Impact prize from the Kenya Theater Awards (after the Lifetime Achievement prize went to the honorable Mzee David Mulwa).

I have personally had the privilege of seeing Sibi perform on a number of these occasions and even more that I don’t have room to see.

But I have to say that none could match Sibi Okumu’s performance with the Nairobi Orchestra at Braeburn Garden Estate School last weekend.

There he performed two tales accompanying the music of, first Saint Saens”Carnival of the Animals’and then that of George Kleinsinger ‘Tuby the Tuba’† Both were conducted under the direction of Levy Wataka, the Kenyan conductor who has trained (and also taught) all over the UK, Italy and Germany to Venezuela.

The orchestra did a great job on Sunday afternoons, entertaining young and old alike with a lively repertoire featuring everyone from Tchaikovsky and Saint Saens to film scores from the Avengers, James Bond and the Magnificent Seven after the intermission. The latter were performed by an energetic James Laight.

But it was Sibi whose part in Tuby de Tuba was very sweet. The story was about the lone Tuba, who often called upon a hefty size and deep bass to make Ump Pah, Ump Pah sounds, but rarely got a melody written especially for his instrument.

It’s a Bullfrog that teaches Tuby a melody that he can bring back to his orchestra who happily learned Tuby’s tune.

It was Sibi’s performance when the merry Bullfrog showed me this actor’s vibrant versatility and childlike joy like never before.