Shona Dream Dance is a work for solo marimba inspired by the mbira music of the Shona people of Zimbabwe. The mbira is better known as a kalimba or thumb piano, and its music is traditionally based on a fairly simple harmonic sequence, which is then developed by layering two or three voices in various rhythmic patterns and syncopating them in such a way as to imply a variety of downbeats. The inspiration for this piece came from my initial studies of the mbira and of a dream I had, while writing it, of an African woman dancing.
