Virtual National Arts Festival – Concert 2

We are honoured to have been awarded a Standard Bank Bronze Ovation Award for this concert. Because of this, this concert viewing has been extended, and you can now enjoy it until the end of August.

47 musicians from the KZN Philharmonic Orchestras participated in the symphonic repertoire at Virtual National Arts Festival. The 47th annual National Arts Festival – for the second time in its history this year, is being held entirely online due to the COVID-19 virus which has seen a lot of events either being postponed, made virtual or cancelled. The festival started on the 8^th July and ends on the 31st July 2021. It is the ultimate virtual celebration of South African arts.

“After we had to cancel our Winter Season due to the third wave, the orchestra had to resort to other creative ways in order to continue uplifting spirits of people around the country by sharing the musical experience with their audiences. With the many challenges that the national lockdown has presented; the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra is amongst the many artists to be featured on this year’s Virtual National Arts Festival”, said Mr Bongani Tembe, CEO and Artistic Director of the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra. 

The KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra, one of South Africa’s leading orchestras will present 2 concerts entitled The Joy of Symphony Music with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra Concert 1 and The Joy of Symphony Music with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra Concert 2, both of whichwere recorded live at Playhouse Opera Theatre, whilst following all the COVID-related protocols.

The Joy of Symphony Music with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra Concert 1 will feature Tchaikovsky’s Serenade in C Major, Dvorak Silent Woods with Cellist Aristide du Plessis and end with Haydn’s Symphony No. 104.

The Joy of Symphony Music with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra Concert 2 will open with an overture from Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni followed by Bloch Concerto Grosso no. 1 with Durban pianist Andrew Warburton and is rounded off with Mozart’s Linz Symphony. 

Both programmes will be introduced by Deano Maduramuthu, who is a popular presenter on Classic 1027.

“Music lovers, all over South Africa and across the continent, can tune in to hear this great Orchestra perform a specially curated programme for the virtual National Arts Festival. We hope this concert will uplift the spirit of South Africans and Africans during these trying times”, concludes Mr Tembe.

The Joy of Symphony Music with the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra Concerts 1 and 2, which were both conducted by Lykele Temmingh, will be aired as part of the vFringe live streamed events and tickets will cost just R100 per concert. These concert will form part of the “videos-on-demand” offering and will be available to view until the end of July, thereby allowing audiences to view the Orchestra’s performance at their leisure. 

The 2021 Virtual National Arts Festival will take place entirely on the Festival website and will comprise a daily Curated Programme of shows, workshops and events; as well as a special Virtual Fringe section with multiple performances to choose from. We are very grateful to the National Arts Festival for hosting the vFringe on the festival website as this means that the process is free of high third party platform costs (which are usually charged in dollars) and 90% of the ticket sales will go to Orchestra/artists and 10% will be allocated to the National Arts Festival, which will help cover their operational administrative fees. 

Tickets are R100, and are available from the festival directly, by clicking here.