Makeson Browne aka Mark Fransman

Saxophone / Spoken Word

Cape Town born multi-instrumentalist and producer Mark Fransman made his stage debut in musical theatre, as pianist and vocalist in the David Kramer/Taliep Petersen productions ‘Poison’ and ‘Kat and the Kings’. He pursued his tertiary education at the University of Cape Town, where he worked with alto-saxophonist Paul Du Preez, eventually forming the band Gift of Speech together with Dave Ridgeway (bass) and Vince Pavitt (drums). He has performed extensively on stages both locally and abroad including all the major jazz festivals of South Africa as well as the Euro De Afrique festival in Italy (along with such names as Yusuf N’dour and Papa Wemba), the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague and the Swedish Jazz Celebration in Stockholm.

Mark has a long list of awards which includes the FNB Vita Award for most outstanding performer in musical theatre (1995/96), the UCT Adcock Ingram Jazz Competition (2000), Johnnie Walker’s ‘Musician of the year for 2004’, and the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Jazz (2008).

Contact Makeson Browne