Booking has opened on the Quicket platform for the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra’s (CPO) third annual Franschhoek Chamber Music Festival, which runs in the beautiful winelands valley from 15 to 18 February.
All 10 concerts will be subject to the excellent acoustics of the historic Dutch Reformed church and feature special guest stars, the Berlin-based Bushakevitz siblings. The concerts, all masterpieces of the chamber-music repertoire, will showcase all the CPO musicians as they display they are far more than orchestral musicians in the intimate chamber-musicians’ setting.
For the first year Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Orchestra musicians, who have always performed for concertgoers around the hospitality tent, will be featured in one of the concerts.
Peter Martens, curator of the festival, says it will feature a wide range of works, including a few solo items from the CPO, such as Avigail Bushakevitz performing a Bach partita or Bruch’s pieces for clarinet (Ferrol-Jon Davids), viola (Petrus Coetzee) and piano (Ammiel Bushakevitz). Among the contemporary pieces wlll be one by Peter Louis van Dijk, a novelette for bass (Roxane Steffen) and quartet, and Arvo Pãrt’s “Fratres”, written for piano (Ammiel) and violin (Avigail), to which percussion (Eugene Trofimcyzk) has been added. The Bushakevitz siblings often play together and, along with other musicians, and one of their high points will be the four concertos of “The Four Seasons” by Vivaldi.
The festival has always championed South African music, and Peter Louis van Dijk is this year’s choice. The festival is also proud to present two female composers, Louise Ferenc and Fanny Mendelssohn, who Martens says are in a class of their own.
Founders Nic and Ferda Barrow are delighted with the line-up of this festival, but especially that their dream of bringing chamber music to the Winelands has been a resounding success. “We are particularly pleased with this mix of classical and contemporary works and, of course, the inclusion of two female composers,” Ferda said.
For Louis Heyneman, CEO of the CPO, “This has been a perfect opportunity to take great music to a wider audience that has proven so appreciative in the past. It is part of our mandate to enhance the quality of live music for all communities, and performing in the winelands is a privilege.”
Tickets will be available from 1 December on the Quicket website. Tickets are R260 per concert with a 10% reduction for a subscription; early-bird specials at R234 were available until 7 December. The full programme can be accessed here https://fcmf.co.za/.
