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
(please remove curlies {} when using email)

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The Cape Town Composers' Workshop presents Cape Town Goema Orchestra - Goema Symphony No. 1

The Cape Town Composers' Workshop
presents
Parts of Mac McKenzie’s Goema Symphony No. 1 performed by a 25 piece orchestra. 
Feature guest compositions from Derek Gripper, Mandla Mlangeni and Aykes Swartz.

First concert season of 2011.

Saturday 12, 19, 26 March 2011
Concerts start 8 pm, doors open 7:30 pm
SABC Auditorium, 209 Beach Road, Sea Point, Cape Town
Tickets R 150 pp, available at the door.
Reduced price for students and pensioners R 100 pp
Reservations by e-mail: composers.workshop.ct{@}gmail.com (remove curlies{} when using)
or SMS to 072 500 22 04

In August 2010, Mac McKenzie debuted his Goema Symphony No. 1. It was the culmination of a process that started officially with seed funding from the Cape Africa Platform in 2005, and that began unofficially back in the days of the Genuines, Mac's punk rock cult band. "I've got sketches going back to the 80s" says Mac, "So this is nothing new, it has been coming on a long time.
What is new is that now we can do it!

"These three concerts take place under the auspices of the Cape Town Composers' Workshop, a not for profit organization created to develop young composers, and network international composers.

The work draws on the indigenous roots of Cape Town music, and tells very distinctly Cape Town stories. Expect banjo, mandolin and gummie drum, added to the traditional symphonic instrumentation, for building the unique Goema groove.

If you are a fan of symphonic music, you will enjoy this fresh approach. And if you think you are not a fan, but love Cape Town music, 'in all its deviant forms', as Mac likes to say, then you will be quite surprised that something symphonic could sound so much like home.

For more info, E-mail: composers.workshop.ct{@}gmail.com (remove curlies{} when using)

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