The first-ever Symphonic Rocks in Cape Town in 2010 was a runaway success – and now this superbly entertaining mixture of contemporary and classical music extends its reach in 2011 with shows being held at the GrandWest Grand Arena in Cape Town on 1 October, and the Carnival City Big Top Arena on 7 October.
Presented by Heineken® in association with 5FM, this year’s ‘Symphonic Rocks’ are creating a cross-genre mix from rock to pop, adult contemporary, R&B, hip hop and electro and some of South Africa’s most popular artists. You can expect a 65 piece Symphony Orchestra, Arno Carstens, Loyiso, Ard Mattews, CrashCarBurn, Zebra and Giraffe, Tumi & The Volume and last but not least MacStanley. They’re the brains behind this whole event. The country’s top- selling group of 2010, Loncville, will be part of the ‘Symphonic Rocks’ Johannesburg’s line-up as will Freshlyground’s extraordinary vocalist, Zolani Mahola.
‘Arno Carstens’
MacStanley explains his motivation at the concert: ‘Last year it was incredible to see the collaborative process at work between the pop and rock musicians and their classical counterparts,’ Mac says: ‘The many months of work that goes into scoring the orchestral arrangements for all the artists is pretty intense, but witnessing the audience and artists themselves experiencing these songs in a way they never have before is worth every ounce of effort!’
‘MacStanley’
The event gives fans of South African music a change to see their favourite bands and serves up a mix of contemporary and classical music. Backed by the massive 65-piece orchestra, the bands change their popular radio hits into high-ended musical pieces.
John Walton from the Cape Town Pops Orchestra first started scoring the music in April this year to ensure a seamless musical marriage between the full symphony orchestra and popular South African musicians. John Walton explains the whole process: ‘The first step in the process was transcribing recordings of all the songs into music notation, as the songs weren’t available in sheet music.’
‘Cape Town Pops Orchestra’
From there, John says: ‘I let the music speak to me. It takes a while for my subconscious to start suggesting what orchestral textures, counterpoints etc to use for each song. But once this starts, it’s hard to turn it off. In fact my consciousness gets flooded with ideas and I then have to sift through them, and not be precious about it. Some nice ideas need to be discarded, unfortunately, as the effect for the show needs to be put first.”As he continues: ‘I love doing this work and it is a privilege to be able to conduct an exceptionally fine professional orchestra playing my arrangements – there’s not much that beats this experience.’
Several artists performing in 2010 at ‘Symphonic Rocks’
Several artists performing in 2010 at ‘Symphonic Rocks’
The shows start at 20h00 and tickets are available from Computicket.com at R225 in Cape Town and between R225 and R275 for the Johannesburg show. For more information, visit www.symphonicrocks.co.za
