Our Story
Established in 2015, VOX Cape Town has rapidly emerged as one of South Africa’s most compelling choral forces. Guided by a vision to craft mesmerising musical experiences for audiences and its singers alike, VOX is recognised for its imaginative presentations of seldom-heard and new choral works in unconventional spaces.
Our Story
2026
- Performed Mendelssohn's Lobgesang with the AfriArts Chorus and Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra at Cape Town City Hall, as part of the CPO's 2026 Autumn Symphonies.
- NanoVOX gave the African premiere of Cecilia McDowall's five-voice work Photo 51 at a UCT biomedical research institute, marking DNA Day.
'EquiVOX' — a three-part series marking the Autumn Equinox, exploring the same musical material through transcription, ensemble singing, and recording:
- VOX Without the Voices — St George's Cathedral 'Unplugged' lunch-hour concert series
- Introducing 'NanoVOX' — debut performance of VOX's small ensemble at 6 Spin Street
- The Place of the Stars — launch of VOX's latest EP
2025
VOX Turns Ten
- Choral Pilgrimage on St Cecilia's Day — first-ever pilgrimage, performing Britten's Hymn to St Cecilia across four contrasting sonic spaces—from church to lecture theatre, wood-panelled hall to art gallery—revealing how spaces reshape sound
- Follow That Star: A Traveller's Companion to Christmas — an immersive collaboration with Here be Dragons, featuring music, maps, local ale/cider, and an enchanted pine forest scent
- O Holy Night — three sold-out performances at St George's Cathedral with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and Cape Town Opera
- Our newly-reimagined Festival of Poetry and Carols broadcast on FMR on Christmas Eve—another tradition now in its tenth year
- Birthday party at Youngblood Gallery (site of VOX's first 2016 performance) and a special birthday broadcast on Fine Music Radio
- Release of new album Eternity in an Hour (FMR's Album of the Week during birthday week)
- Launch of second decade with X Years of Reverb — southern hemisphere premiere of Jonny Greenwood's eight-hour organ work
- Culmination of VOX's first decade — winter solstice performances at the McClean Dome, South African Astronomical Observatory: |gamirodi !khaes ('The Place of the Stars')
- Eternity in an Hour at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church
- Choir-in-Residence at the Mzanzi Conductors' Convention — performance under seven conductors at the Cape Town International Convention Centre
- Fine Music Radio Benefit Gala at Artscape Opera House, featuring the premiere of VOX's commissioned choral jingle for the station
- Revealed special birthday logo
- Performed lecture-recital Phases, Phrases, and Palindromes at UCT Summer School — symbolic for reuniting with Grant McLachlan, featuring formative composers John Tavener and Arvo Pärt, and evoking ties to patron Barry Smith through the Baxter venue
2024
- "Not Your Usual Nine Lessons" — our Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols reimagined
- Traditional Nine Lessons and Carols — the traditional version of the service, performed the following week
- O Holy Night — three concerts with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and three other choirs
- From Roots to Renewal — an afternoon of musical highlights honouring St Andrew's Church, Newlands (130th anniversary), and launching the VOX Turns Ten programme
- Harmony on Tap — a multisensory evening pairing choral music with craft beers at Jack Black's Taproom
"Tree of Life"— an immersive nature-inspired choral programme, marking VOX's return to Hermanus after five years, performed during FynArts Festival:
- Preceded by an open rehearsal at the Baxter Theatre, Rondebosch
- And a warm-up performance at Oude Westhof Retirement Village, Bellville
- Reprised at the Olympia Bakery, Kalk Bay
2023
Renatus
- Timeless Whispers — multisensory celebration of mostly new South African music, evoking the Karoo's landscapes and night skies
- Eternal Echoes — VOX's most ambitious performance yet (600+ guests), held in the candlelit Bishops Memorial Chapel; a four-century programme built around the Rachmaninoff Vespers, with guest performers the Chanticleer Singers and Richard Cock from Johannesburg
- Eighth birthday celebration — jamming with local rock band ISO at the Two Oceans Aquarium
- Opening ceremony of the National Conductors' Convention
- Premiere of a newly-commissioned choral work by Kristi Boonzaaier
- Performance of his San Gloria in Stellenbosch, part of Péter Louis van Dijk's 70th birthday celebrations
- Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra at Maynardville
- Music Across Time at the Baxter Concert Hall — 20th- and 21st-century choral music, including the premiere of the full choral arrangement of Grant McLachlan's Of Light (settings of four poems by South African women)
2022
Quietus (II)
- Spem in alium — five VOX members, former singers, and musical friends performed Thomas Tallis's 40-part motet as part of the 2022 Cape Town Baroque Festival, continuing VOX's long-standing relationship with Tallis's music and the festival
- Doubt Thou — final Virtual VOX project, shared on Valentine's Day; a celebration of devotion and love, specially commissioned for the ten-year anniversary and engagement of two members of VOX's musical family
2021
Quietus (I)
Returned to the stage after nearly two years, with Here be Dragons early music ensemble, at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church:
- Follow That Star: A Traveller's Companion to Christmas — folk-inspired concert experience
- Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
- A handful of VOX singers contributed vocals to the soundscape of a short film for an international exhibition on gender and architecture, opening later that year at the MAXXI Museum in Rome; an experiment in abstract vocalising set in APS Conradie's Op Die Berg Kerk in the Cederberg, made in collaboration with Meghan Ho-Tong, Matty Roodt and Lucienne Bestall
- Manager and baritone Kyle Paulssen — a medical intern at George Hospital — became VOX's first singer vaccinated ("VOXinated") against Covid-19, marking a first step toward singing together again safely
2020
Virtual VOX
- " Rejoice!" A Compendium of Carols — VOX's fifth Christmas Eve broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, a virtual performance with Here be Dragons early music ensemble and soprano Lente Louw
- Of Barrels and Blossoms — VOX's fifth album, marking its fifth birthday and bringing choral music comfort during stay-at-home times
- The Seal Lullaby by Eric Whitacre — VOX's fourth virtual performance, in collaboration with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra
Celebrated our fifth anniversary:
- Third Virtual VOX project — Stars by Ēriks Ešenvalds
- Live recordings from the 2019 Norval Foundation performance
- Special "Five Years of VOX" broadcast on Fine Music Radio
- VOX commits to taking a vocal stand against racism
- John Woodland invited to the Hermanus FynArts Festival to discuss lessons from the Virtual VOX lockdown projects
- Second Virtual VOX project, Gebed — first recording of a new choral work by South African composer Hans Huyssen, commissioned by VOX in 2019
- " Recorded alone, but singing together…" — on Freedom Day, VOX released its very first Virtual VOX project with meditative visuals by Liam Pitcher, offering comfort during the pandemic
- Building on its presentation with Grant McLachlan at the UCT Summer School the previous month, VOX presented its fourth "In The Dark" instalment — two recitals of choral music spanning 1,000 years at the Youngblood Gallery
2019
- Fifth annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols — attended by 400+ guests, featuring three new additions to the local repertoire: Stephen Carletti's By, By, Lullaby, Hans Huyssen's "baie rustig" setting of Somerkersfees, and an isiXhosa translation of Cradle Hymn; all three recorded for the Christmas Eve broadcast on Fine Music Radio
- "Flower Songs" — series of three intimate recitals at the UCT Irma Stern Museum, featuring many firsts: botanically-inspired music arranged by Matthew Dennis, the premiere of Nicky Schrire's Caged Bird, and unique disa origami by Timothy Povall of Timugami
- First out-of-town recital — a musical autobiography — shared with the Hermanus Music Society at the Bouchard Finlayson Boutique Winery, Hemel-en-Aarde Valley
- In anticipation of its Norval Foundation performance, VOX hosted a free open rehearsal and preview performance; also entered a partnership with Ian Burgess-Simpson Pianos, who sponsored instruments for both events
2018
- VOX's recordings featured for two months in the first Light Art Festival at Spier Wine Farm, part of an installation of choral soundscapes with light projections on the bamboo forest
- Cape Town's first performance of Stabat Mater by Karl Jenkins — VOX's largest and most collaborative project yet, taking an audience of 800+ on "a choral and orchestral journey to solace"
- Some VOX alumni ("extended family") participated in a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 ("Resurrection") celebrating the re-opening of the Cape Town City Hall; VOX's main focus was a concert hosted by the South African College of Music celebrating composer and pianist Thomas Rajna's 90th birthday
- VOX ran an online survey on listener preferences, compiled into the concert programme "VOX Pops", which served as a fundraiser for a new community hall for St Andrew's Church, Newlands
- For the second year running, VOX participated in the annual lecture-demonstrations of patron Dr Barry Smith at the UCT Summer School, Baxter Concert Hall; a week later, VOX presented Mozart on the same stage for the Cape Town Concert Series
2017
- As part of a commitment to local choral music, VOX commissions and premieres a new work written by young Cape Town-based composer Maike Watson for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, with words by Margaret Kollmer
- VOX performs at the inaugural Cape Town Baroque Festival, commencing a fruitful relationship with local early orchestra Camerata Tinta Barocca
- VOX presents its first instalment of a unique pairing of wine and choral song, known as “ViniChoral" at Groot Constantia, South Africa’s oldest wine-producing estate
- VOX signs a recording contract with local record label WooWi/CapeTown Sound to produce recordings for the local and global market
2016
- VOX is invited to record its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols which is broadcast on Christmas Eve Fine Music Radio, beginning an important annual tradition
- VOX launches its most successful musical journey – “Trust the Silences” – which is described as “a mind massage of masterful sound – such delicious clarity of notes that resonated with every fibre of attention”
- The first concert in the “New Soundscapes” series, “A Tale of Two Tave(r)ners”, is held at VOX’s performance “home”, St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church
- VOX presents its very first public performance as part of the “In The Dark” series at the Youngblood Gallery in Cape Town
- VOX Cape Town launches its new identity and vision (“to invigorate local choral music through imaginative programming and staging to create intimate, immersive sensory experiences”) and announces its first series of performances for the coming year entitled “New Soundscapes”
2015
Primus
- VOX is invited to record its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols which is broadcast on Christmas Eve Fine Music Radio, beginning an important annual tradition
