Tickets for the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra’s (CPO) performance at the Franschhoek Chamber Music Festival in February next year are already on sale.
All 10 concerts of the fourth annual festival will be held in the excellent acoustic of the historic Franschhoek Dutch Reformed church from Thursday 13 to Sunday 16 February 2025.
The guest artist will be Miclen LaiPang, the violinist of the renowned Trio Zadig, associate artists at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Paris. He is also the founder and artistic director of the Miesbach Chamber Music Festival and teaches at the International Chamber Music Academy of Southern Germany in Ochsenhausen, Germany and the Talent Summer Music Courses in Brescia, Italy.
Miclen has just been given the use of the Castleman ex-Marquis Champeaux Stradivarius.
The concerts all feature masterpieces of the chamber music repertoire from Mozart’s “Gran Partita” to Beethoven’s “Razumovsky Quartet”, Schumann’s “Piano Quintet”, Mozart’s “Clarinet Quintet”, Mendelssohn’s “Piano Sextet” and a chamber version of Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto”. In all, CPO musicians will be showcased in an intimate chamber setting, which itself is set in lush grounds with awnings and food and wine to be enjoyed.
A piece that has probably never been performed outside of Europe since it was discovered a couple of months ago is the Mozart Serenade for Two Violins and Bass, “K. 648”, which will be played by Suzanne and Philips Martens (violin) and Peter Martens on the cello (not bass).
Guests who will join the CPO at the 10 concerts are concertmasters Farida Bacharova and Suzanne Martens, pianists Esthea Kruger, Pieter Grobler and Francois du Toit and harpsichordist Erik Dippenaar.
Youth will also be showcased by pianists Isaac van der Merwe and Gerhard Joubert, trumpeter Chad Groepies who has just won an audition to join the CPO, CPYO/CPO ad hoc cellists Seul Pearl Yung and Ashlin Grobbelaar and violinist Gilah Kellner and harpist Ricardo Hinnaker.
Peter, artistic director and curator of the festival, said he is grateful to his colleagues for their devotion and support as they play together in small groups where soloistic attributes and sensitive camaraderie are married.
Festival founders Nic and Ferda Barrow are again thrilled with the line-up of musicians. “They have become part of the pastiche of the valley at this time of year. We know this festival will be another extraordinary event for the concerts are such an enjoyable mixture of genres, and performed by the best musicians in the country with a showcase of rising stars,” the pair said.
Louis Heyneman, CEO of the CPO added: “We are honoured to be invited back and to partner with the Barrows, whose passion for the arts makes this possible.”
Tickets can be booked online through www.quicket.co.za. For more information, send an email to info@fcmf.co.za.
