Rebecca Meredith
An initiative aiming to diversify and modernise the music on offer at the City Hall, which is famous for its classical music concerts, is due to begin this weekend as part of the Creative Cape Town project.
The “City Hall Sessions” music series will welcome South African and international musicians showcasing a variety of genres such as jazz and afro-pop for five sessions each year. The project is funded by a R9.5 million cash injection from the National Lottery, which ensures that the sessions will continue for at least the next two years.
The first session, which runs tomorrow and Saturday, features Kesivan and The Lights, Ray Lema and Chico Cesar and Thandiswa Mazwai and Trio. Mazwai, winner of the Best Female Performer category at the SA Music Awards, said: “It is an honour and a privilege to perform at the City Hall Sessions, and to collaborate with other amazing artists and to bring new sounds to this fantastic venue.”
Steve Gordon, director of the music series for the Cape Town Partnership, said: “Our intention with this project is to supplement the city’s musical diet so that as well as the Philharmonic Orchestra we have this space to project other genres of music and to give Capetonians the opportunity to experience new sounds. We hope to bring a year-round diversity of music to the city.”
The City Hall Sessions will also involve music training schemes for pre-university students aged 13-20 which will focus on giving young people from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to experience music improvisation in the City Hall.
Zayd Minty, co-ordinator of Creative Cape Town, hopes the city will come to consider the hall as a cross-cultural, cross-genre concert space. He said: “We hope that this project will reposition the City Hall as a space in the mind of the city. It is great for the space to experience a whole range of different music and especially cross-cultural African music.”