Dear friends,

As the full swing of the Festive Season lingers in the last few days of 2020, I want to take a minute to thank you for your loyal and valued support this year. Since my last blog I have had a couple of celebration concerts with Nataniël, performed with Dutch singer Amira in a new online Christmas show where I also was the musical director, and had trio concerts and solo recitals that I enjoyed tremendously. We also launched a new classical music project in Pretoria titled Aardklop Aubade with a Christmas concert. It was so heart warming to see fans in theatres for the first time since March and feel the power of live music. The support was overwhelming.

It is fair to say that this year was extremely difficult and unpredictable for all. That is why our ability to be flexible was tested to the extreme and became so apparent for both artists and audiences. Business models had to adapt from having no audience and moving online, to a maximum capacity of 50, then 100 and finally 250 people for the remainder of October and November. The last couple of concerts at the allowed capacity of 250 made it possible to present shows with more comfort, but still with a very small profit margin. Then, by the middle of December, we were cut back to a maximum of 100 people and who knows what the future will hold.

I can, however, assure you of this – the resilience contained in me and some of my colleagues propels us to remain creative, driven and to keep looking for alternative ways to bring the performing arts to you in any form or shape possible, whilst always considering everyone’s health and safety.

I have taken some time out between December and January to return to the drawing board and I am working on a selection of smaller business models for the concerts ahead, identify new performing venues and selecting works for new concert programmes and recording projects in 2021. You will be the first to know about exciting new projects and I look forward to sharing my ideas and music with you.

Until such time I wish you a very safe, healthy and happy new year and may we all enjoy the comfort that good music brings.

Charl