Baroque Celebration with the CT Baroque Orchestra

The Cape Town Concert Series opens its 2023 season with a celebration of the music of Purcell with the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra featuring German sopranist-countertenor Philipp Mathmann and soprano Louise Howlett. The programme includes a line-up of instrumental repertoire and arias from his most famous stage works, including King Arthur, Dioclesian, Faerie Queene and Dido and Aeneas.  The concert, performed on period instruments, will be directed from the harpsichord by the CTBO’s Artistic Director, Erik Dippenaar.

The concert takes place in the Baxter Concert Hall at 11am on Saturday 11 February and the performance will be followed by a short question-and-answer session with the orchestra and soloists.

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear this expressive and not-often-performed repertoire live!

Tickets from Webtickets R220 and R180 pensioners, R80 Students/Scholars

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

His voice surprises with its bright clarity and fascinates with its intensity: Georg Rudiger has acclaimed its “radiance about which one can only marvel…” (Badische Zeitung) and Richard Lorber has celebrated its “irritatingly-beautiful, bell-clean naivety” (WDR3 Opernblog).

Soprano Philipp Mathmann is one of the most sought-after countertenors in the world today. During the course of his still-young career he has taken on numerous leading roles in highly-acclaimed productions such as Anastasio in “Giustino” (Handel), Abel in “Cain and Abel” (Scarlatti), Mirtillo in “Il pastor fido” and La Bellezza in “Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno” (Handel). These productions attracted national attention and were nominated for notable prizes, such as the Faust Prize and the Golden Mask Award. Mathmann’s opera engagements have taken him to the Teatro Real Madrid, the Aalto-Theater Essen, the Theater an der Wien, the Stanislawski Theater Moscow and numerous other renowned music festivals.

Mathmann does not just limit himself to baroque repertoire. In 2021/22, for example, he sang the part of the Angel at the Semperoper Dresden in the world premiere of Thorsten Rasch’s “Die andere Frau”, and the part of the Scorpion Man in Jörg Widmann’s opera “Babylon” at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden. Mathmann has worked in concert with some of the most renowned early music ensembles, such as the Freiburger Barockorchester, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Concerto Köln and conductors such as Christophe Rousset, Gianluca Capuano and Diego Fasolis. His first CD (“La deposizione dalla croce di Gesu Cristo” by F. X. Richter) was released in 2017 and was followed in 2020 by his first solo CD (“Tormenti d’Amore”) which featured 3 world premiere recordings.

The Cape Town Baroque Orchestra (CTB) is the leading South African baroque ensemble playing on period instruments. It was founded by violinist Quentin Crida in July 2004 as Camerata Tinta Barocca. As of July 2021 the ensemble has adopted the name Cape Town Baroque Orchestra, carrying it into a new age of growth and artistic excellence.

Members include some of South Africa’s finest musicians who embrace a historically informed performance approach. Mostly playing music from the 18th century, CTB has worked with international leaders in their respective fields, such as baroque violinists Antoinette Lohmann and Pauline Nobes; soprano Stefanie True; countertenors Lawrence Zazzo and Christopher Ainslie; male soprano Philipp Mathmann; recorder players Stefan Temmingh, Erik Bosgraaf and Anna Fusek; baroque oboist and recorder player Carin van Heerden, mandolin player Alon Sariel and conductor Arjan Tien.

Apart from CTB’s annual concert series in St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Cape Town, the ensemble regularly accompanies opera and oratorio performances, performs in festivals throughout South Africa and has an active outreach and education programme. CTB’s concerts have been broadcast on Fine Music Radio and kykNET, and have received critical acclaim in the Cape Times and Die Burger.

Since 2011 CTB has gradually moved towards playing on period instruments. Currently CTB is the only ensemble in South Africa that regularly plays in orchestral format, performing all of its annual concerts on period appropriate instruments. In 2013 CTB, in collaboration with the Cape Consort, gave the first South African period performance of Handel’s Messiah. During November 2016 CTB played for Cape Town Opera’s first production with a period instrument orchestra, in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, directed by Jaco Bouwer and conducted by Erik Dippenaar. In December 2016 CTB was nominated for a kykNET Fiësta award for a programme titled Handel in the drawing room presented during the 2016 Klein Karoo Klassique festival.

Erik Dippenaar was appointed as Artistic Director in 2015.