Cape Town Goema Orchestra – Table Bay Concerto in G Major

Cape Town Goema Orchestra – Table Bay Concerto in G Major
Saturday 26 November and 3 December 2011, 20:00
SABC Auditorium, Beach Road, Sea Point

The Cape Town Goema Orchestra will perform the world première of Mac McKenzie’s latest composition The Table Bay Concert in G-Major ahead of the city’s renowned New Year minstrel carnival.

Locals can kick start the festive season with this celebration of Cape music and hear new goema compositions by other up and coming composers of this style.

“This showcase of Cape music will do Capetonians proud”, says McKenzie, the leading modern voice of goema and its most prolific composer.

He has spent most of this year writing and refining his new work: “The concerto is a chronological account of Table Bay as I imagine it: my impression of its evolution from the time just before the arrival of European settlers, through the time of colonialism, up to the present. I’ve borrowed from various forms such as European hymnody, classical forms and street music – what I sometimes call tsotsi music – and assimilated them into goema. The goema is the heart beat of the minstrel carnival.”

In July this year McKenzie performed sketches of the score in Switzerland with members of the Casal Quartet and other South African musicians, including Paul Hanmer and Feya Faku. The performances were so well received that the Swiss organisers have commissioned an arrangement of the work for a 25-piece orchestra, which he will direct in the coming European spring in cities and festivals across Switzerland.

“The 20-piece Cape Town Goema Orchestra is a synergy of diverse musicians and people, from highly experienced classical, jazz and traditional music instrumentalists, to young church and street musicians, all connected to the rich culture and soundscape of our city. It’s a truly unifying force in our country that celebrates and takes our music forward with vision and passion”, says McKenzie.

The orchestra performs under the banner of McKenzie’s Cape Town Composers’ Workshop operating out of Bridgetown. It will also debut works by guest composers Chantal Willie, Derek Gripper, Mandla Mlangeni and Aykes Swartz.

Performances take place on Saturday 26 November and 3 December at the SABC Auditorium in Beach Road, Sea Point at 8 pm.
Tickets cost R100.
For reservations call 072 500 2204 or email: mailto:composers.workshop.ct@gmail.com
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Posted in: Aykes Swartz, Cape Town Goema Orchestra, Chantal Willie, Derek Gripper, Goema, Mac McKenzie, Mandla Mlangeni, Table Bay Concerto in G Major