EVENTS

CAPE TOWN PRIDE
Friday 24 February - 06 March 2011

As always, this Festival is a highlight of Cape Town’s Gay Calendar.

The theme of the Cape Town Pride Festival 2011 is “Love our diversity”. The Parade and Pride Carnival will be happening on Saturday 5 March 2011.

http://www.capetownpride.co.za

Forty-Two Travel Experiences recommend: 
Stay in the vibey De Waterkant Village and join in all the festivities!

2011 CAPE ARGUS CYCLE TOUR
Sunday 13 March 2011

▪ Participate in the largest timed cycle race in the world.
▪ Enjoy 109 km of the most spectacular scenery.
▪ Ride side-by-side with 35000 other cycling enthusiasts

Enter to day as application for the Cape Argus Cycle Tour will be closing soon.

http://www.cycletour.co.za

TWO OCEANS MARATHON
22 & 23 April 2011

The Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon has earned a reputation as the world’s most beautiful marathon. The first race was held in 1970 and saw 26 runners line up to face the unknown challenge. Since then, the race has become a national institution and a firm favourite with local, upcountry, and international athletes.

Participants can choose from various distances – the scenic 56km ultra marathon or popular 21km half marathon and the 5km or 2.5km fun runs. The event attracts close to 26 000 participants across all the distances and provides them with a mixture of breathtaking scenery, a gruelling test of fitness for both the elite and recreational runner, and an unrivalled race organisation and atmosphere.

Participants consistently vote it as one of the best in South Africa and it continues to attract strong fields and an increasing number of international entrants. The event has become synonymous with the Easter Weekend in Cape Town, with the pre-race activities at the expo, family day, and fun runs on Easter Friday. En-route entertainment on the race day provides fun, excitement, and a unique experience to runners, family, friends, and spectators alike.

http://www.twooceansmarathon.org.za/

CAPE TOWN JAZZ FESTIVAL
25 & 26 March 2011

When everywhere the talk is about cuts and scaling down in response to the recession, organisers of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival are going big. They are bringing to the festival which takes place during Easter (Saturday 03 and Sunday 04 April 2010) a doyen of jazz piano and multi-Grammy Award winner, McCoy Tyner.

Bursting onto the scene in the 1960s as saxophonist John Coltrane’s pianist, Tyner featured as the man on the ivories on the saxophonist's classic recordings such as Live at the Village Vanguard, Impressions and Coltrane's extraordinary suite, A Love Supreme. Since then, curiosity and audacity has characterised Tyner’s musical journey. He is one of the first jazz musicians to consciously re-introduce sounds and rhythms of Africa into jazz. In the 1970s and 1980s, Tyner was in the forefront of re-arranging jazz charts for big ensembles. In the course of this he won many accolades; Grammy awards for his 1988 Blues for Coltrane, 1992 The Turning Point, 1994 Journey, 1995 Journey and 2004 Illuminations. In the last two years, the 71-year pianist has released three superb CDs; a testimony that Tyner still brims of energy and vitality.
 
The festival has also signed up Regina Carter - Downbeat’s Annual Critics Polls’ No.1 jazz violinist in 2009 – and a cutting-edge vocalist, Rachelle Ferrell. Carter who has been making waves as she crosses the worlds of Western classical music, jazz and pop is the first jazz musician and Afro-American to play the Guarneri del Gesu violin that classical composer Nicolo Paganini owned. Ferrell, on the other hand is one of the top female vocalists in the world today. The US singer is able to demonstrate with her singing the possibilities that exist with the human voice. Not only is she able to imitate the sounds of various instruments, she scats, hits the highest registers and chirps like a bird.

Despite the financial squeeze affecting everyone, the organisers of Africa’s Grandest Gathering are also not letting up on the formula that has made the event one of the most prestigious jazz festivals in the world. As in previous years, next year’s Cape Town International Jazz Festival will feature 40 bands - equally split between African and overseas artists - on five stages over two days. In addition to Tyner, Carter and Ferrell other headline acts are the older statesman of jazz Toots Thielemans (Belgium), great South African pianist Tete Mbambisa and US-based South African guitarist Jonathan Butler. US trumpeter Rick Braun and Scottish saxophonist Richard Elliott will join Butler on stage. Other artists in the initial lineup are: Amanda Tiffan (SA); The Bokani Dyer Trio (Botswana/SA); Brooklyn Funk Essentials (US); The Glenn Robertson Jazz Band (SA); Iridium Project (SA); Kesivan Naidoo and the Lights (SA/Sweden/Switzerland); Mezzoforte (Iceland); Michaela Rabitz & Robert Pawlik Quartet (Austria); Musa Manzini (SA); Sammy Hartman Project with Robbie Jansen & Ezra Ngcukana (SA); Selaelo Selota (SA); Stix Hojeng (SA); and Vusi Mahlasela (SA).

“Many people do not understand why President Obama preserved a $50-million increase in arts funding in his stimulus package. Not only do the arts sustain livelihoods of artists and their families, music and other art forms provide hope in times of despair”, says EspAfrika and festival director Rashid Lombard. Explaining the refusal of festival organisers to scale down the event in light of what are clearly difficult times, Lombard was visionary in his response. “Hard times like the one we are going through also spur creativity. Look at the golden years of jazz. The Jazz Age – a period that produced many of the jazz standards - took place in the midst of the Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s. It is vital to keep the arts alive during times of economic depression”.  

In its 11-years of existence, the Cape Town International Jazz Festival has clearly been something more than performances by the 40-bands. The festival that was attended by 33 500 in 2009 is always a hive of activity – master classes that overseas and local artists run for professional musicians, a 3-day school workshop that takes about 100 scholars from surrounding townships, a music business course, a photographic exhibition and an arts journalism course. In the last two years, EspAfrika organised a free post-festival People’s Concert where some of the featured musicians perform in a township venue and through their music talk about crime and substance abuses. This is in addition to the free pre-festival Community Concert that draws 8 000 people to the city centre’s Greenmarket Square. “None of the festival-related events are being scaled down. Why should we do that because of a temporary economic downturn and when our long-term vision is to create a vibrant creative industry”, asked Lombard.
Last year, the festival created 2 750 jobs. It also contributed R761-million to the national gross domestic product (GDP) and R572-million to the Western Cape provincial GDP. The remainder of artists will be announced at the beginning of 2010. The success of the festival would have not been possible had it not been the generosity of sponsors. The gold sponsors for the Cape Town International Jazz Festival 2010 are: Department of Arts and Culture, Ritek Empredentos, Other sponsors include Provincial Government of the Western Cape, The City of Cape Town, Grolsch, Jack Daniels and Avis.

Ticket prices for the 2010 festival are: R330 for single day pass and a two-day weekend pass is R485. As in previous years, there will be an extra fee of R25 per act for patrons wishing to attend concerts on the Rosies stage. Tickets are available at Computicket and Shoprite-Checkers stores.

http://www.capetownjazzfest.com

Forty-Two Travel Experiences recommend:  Flatrock Suites – the ideal accommodation when visiting the Cape Town Jazz Festival.