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

April
  • 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.
March

'EquiVOX' — a three-part series marking the Autumn Equinox, exploring the same musical material through transcription, ensemble singing, and recording:

2025

VOX Turns Ten

Nov - Dec
  • 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
Jul - Aug
  • 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
June
Mar - Apr
Jan
  • 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

Dec
Nov
Oct
  • Harmony on Tap — a multisensory evening pairing choral music with craft beers at Jack Black's Taproom
May - Aug

"Tree of Life"— an immersive nature-inspired choral programme, marking VOX's return to Hermanus after five years, performed during FynArts Festival:

2023

Renatus

Oct
  • Timeless Whispers — multisensory celebration of mostly new South African music, evoking the Karoo's landscapes and night skies
Aug
  • 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
Jul
Mar
Jan
  • 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)

Sept
  • 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
Feb
  • 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)

Dec

Returned to the stage after nearly two years, with Here be Dragons early music ensemble, at St Andrew's Presbyterian Church:

Aug
  • 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
Feb
  • 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

Dec
  • " 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
Oct
  • Of Barrels and Blossoms — VOX's fifth album, marking its fifth birthday and bringing choral music comfort during stay-at-home times
Sept
Jul

Celebrated our fifth anniversary:

Jun
May
  • Second Virtual VOX project, Gebed — first recording of a new choral work by South African composer Hans Huyssen, commissioned by VOX in 2019
Apr
Feb

2019

Dec
Jul
  • "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
May
  • First out-of-town recital — a musical autobiography — shared with the Hermanus Music Society at the Bouchard Finlayson Boutique Winery, Hemel-en-Aarde Valley
Mar / Apr

2018

Dec
Oct
  • 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"
Aug
Jun
  • VOX's first "music video" — Grant McLachlan's setting of the poem "Molweni" — commissioned for the Eco-Logic Awards 2018, screened in Tshwane on World Environment Day, later posted on YouTube
Apr
  • 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
Jan

2017

Dec
  • 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
Sept
Aug
  • 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
Apr
  • VOX signs a recording contract with local record label WooWi/CapeTown Sound to produce recordings for the local and global market

2016

Dec
Nov
  • 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”
Sept
  • 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
Aug
  • VOX presents its very first public performance as part of the “In The Dark” series at the Youngblood Gallery in Cape Town
Jul
  • 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

27 July Dec