FESTIVAL

We are delighted to announce the theme of the 2025 instalment of the Cape Town Baroque Festival (CTBF): ‘The Miniature and the Monumental’, featuring various programmes that juxtapose works for large-scale forces with smaller, and often domestic, genres, while exploring the spaces in between. The exciting line-up of ensembles includes the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra, the Cape Town Baroque Trio, Lutesong Consort, and True Voices. We also welcome two international visiting baroque specialists: Erik Bosgraaf (recorder and chalumeau) from the Netherlands and Zefira Valova (baroque violin) from Bulgaria. This will be Erik Bosgraaf’s second visit to Cape Town, following his performance as recorder soloist in the 2019 Cape Town Baroque Festival. Zefira Valova makes her South African debut with the CTBO.

This year, there is a strong focus on the expressive music of Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767), with both a small-scale duo programme and a large-scale orchestral programme dedicated to his output. In addition to performing works of such a well-known composer, we also celebrate the work of an anonymous 18^th-century English female composer who published under the pseudonym Mrs Philarmonica. Although difficult to determine with certainty, this might potentially be the South African premiere of her work.

After the success of the very moving performances of Thomas Tallis’ monumental Spem in alium for 40 individual voices during the 2022 Cape Town Baroque Festival, we include four performances of Spem in alium (two concerts with two hearings of the work per concert) in this year’s festival, this time with the added luxury of Lutesong Consort creating a context for this work by presenting contemporary vocal works for smaller scale forces.

As always, we greatly value the training of young baroquers. This year, we will collaborate with the 19^th Annual Recorder Symposium, in presenting a workshop day of masterclasses and lectures, with Erik Bosgraaf as the guest speaker. Erik will commence the Symposium with a lecture presentation focusing on Adriana van den Bergh, the 17^th-century recorder prodigy. (View the full Recorder Symposium programme here.)

In curating the festival programme, CTBF Artistic Director Erik Dippenaar has carefully paired the repertoire of each concert with the venue, ensuring that the acoustic properties and general atmosphere serve the music best, thereby contributing to the audience’s experience of the concert.

Join us for these special events and celebrate Cape Town as the capital of early music performance in South Africa!

Click on each event below for more information and booking links:

Or click here for a downloadable version of the full programme.

We look forward to seeing you at the 2025 Cape Town Baroque Festival!  In true Cape Town Baroque Orchestra style, we invite you to a complimentary glass of wine after each concert.

Enquiries can be sent to [email protected].