New Cape music collective inaugurates with a South African première
A brand new South African classical composition premières the inaugural five concerts by the Cape Chamber Music Collective (CCMC) in Cape Town and the Boland in January.
Supported by the National Youth Music Foundation (NYMF), the CCMC, a registered non-profit organisation, consist of musicians, ranging from young students to professionals, doing performances in a way that is approachable and informative to all audiences.
These Boland concerts take place on Friday January 21, at 7pm, at the Dutch Reformed Church in Franschhoek, and on Saturday January 22, at 4pm and 7pm, at the Old Tannery, Wellington.
The CCMC commissioned local composer and arranger, Matthijs van Dijk, to complete the sole surviving work of chamber music by Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, Gustav Mahler.
Matthijs is the son of acclaimed South African composer, Peter Louis van Dijk.
In the new composition, Matthijs has taken the themes and motifs in his artistic way to sketch out two additional movements to follow Mahler’s movement.
Mahler's works are generally designed for large orchestral forces, symphonic choruses and operatic soloists. The Piano Quartet in A minor is the first movement to an abandoned piano quartet. The new work is aptly dubbed “part ii: a Mahler Fanfiction”.
Two of the four musicians for these concerts are well-known faces of the annual National Youth Music Competition NYMC.
They are violinist Jeffrey Armstrong the overall winner and gold medallist of the 2014 NYMC and pianist Tertia Visser, a regular accompanist at the competitions.
The other two are viola player Stéphanie Lawrenson and cellist Graham du Plessis.
The concert programme includes the first movement of Mahler’s Piano Quartet, Van Dijk’s part ii: a Mahler Fanfiction and the Piano Quartet No 3 in C minor Op 60 by Johannes Brahms.
The CCMC initially planned to launch in January last year but had to be put on hold when the third wave of Covid-19 hit the country.
Tickets range from R120 to R200, and can be booked on Quicket via the CCMC website at www.capechambercollective.com