“TREE OF LIFE”

As the cold winter months closed in on Cape Town, we thought back frequently to our special weekend on the Whale Coast filled with song, sunshine and a standing ovation for our performance at the Hermanus FynArts Festival on 8 June 2024. We loved sharing our programme of diverse choral music inspired by the splendour of the natural world with a generous and appreciative audience at this special festival that celebrates creativity in all its forms.

Thank you to Mary, Chantel, Hedda and the FynArts Team for the invitation and warm reception, and to Walker Bay Nursery for providing the plants that transformed our performance space into a lush and tranquil forest!

Did you know?

• In keeping with the theme of environmental sustainability and awareness that infused our performance at FynArts, our concert programmes were printed on handmade, plantable paper embedded with indigenous flower seeds (vygies and African daisies) courtesy of Growing Paper. This is another way in which we try to unify all the aspects of our performances – as well as keeping the memories and the message of the music alive, long after the final sounds have ebbed away.
• 80% of the music comprising our FynArts performance was written by living composers – half of whom are South African, and two of which were commissions. This demonstrates our commitment to supporting local composers and giving voice to new choral music – not only to promote their artistry, but also to actively address the oft-perceived ‘inaccessibility’ of new music.

Spending time out of town was also the perfect opportunity to cultivate camaraderie amongst our singers and their companions! We are immensely proud of our singers for their exceptional performance at FynArts – and not just for bringing off a demanding programme of (mostly) contemporary choral music spanning a range of styles and languages, but also for singing entrancing solos, reciting poetry, and playing a host of other musical instruments, too!