Booking for the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra’s (CPO) third annual Franschhoek Chamber Music Festival, which runs from 15 to 18 February 2024 opened on Friday (1 December).
All 10 concerts will be held in the historic Franschhoek Dutch Reformed church, with its excellent acoustics, and will feature special guest stars the Berlin-based Bushakevitz siblings. The showpieces, all masterpieces of the chamber-music repertoire, will showcase all the CPO musicians as they display that 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.
Festival curator Peter Martens says among the works, which include larger groups, the CPO is presenting a few solo items 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 will be a piece 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 play together and with other musicians several times, and one of the highlights will be the four concertos of The Four Seasons by Vivaldi.
The festival has always championed South African music, and Van Dijk is this year’s choice. The festival is also proud to present two female composers, Louise Ferenc and Fanny Mendelssohn, neither of whom need to stand back for their male counterparts, Martens said.
Nic and Ferda Barrow, the festival’s founders, are delighted with the line-up, adding that their dream to bring 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,” they say.
Added CPO CEO Louis Heyneman: “This has been a perfect opportunity to take great music to a wider audience, which has proved to be so appreciative in the past. It is part of our mandate to enhance the quality of live for all communities and performing in the winelands is a privilege.”
Tickets will be available on the Quicket website from tomorrow (1 December). Tickets are R260 per concert with a 10% reduction for a subscription; early-bird specials at R234 are available until Thursday 7 December.
Find the full festival programme at fcmf.co.za. For more details, send an email to info@fcmf.co.za.
