This Too Shall Pass [a virtual Easter music performance]

ABOUT

Streamed on Quicket from Good Friday, 2 April 2021 (link live for 7 days)

Recorded on 15 March 2021, St Andrews Church, Cape Town

Running time: 22 minutes

It was just a few weeks ahead of Easter last year when the first lockdown was introduced in South Africa. As this sombre anniversary comes around, it is time to reflect. Lives have been lost, careers put on hold; so many things we took for granted, we now yearn to return to. Amid the disruption, the disorientation, and yes, the wreckage, we have also found new ways to connect and to find resilience within ourselves, our families and our communities. Many of us have also been drawn deeper into our faith. Easter is a time when we remember Christ’s suffering, but we are also reminded that His story did not end in suffering – suffering was only the path to resurrection, and a universal story of hope, love, and triumph. “This Too, Shall Pass” is a short, virtual music production that does not wish away suffering, but fixes the gaze beyond, and ties our current travails to a far larger story.

A personal note from producer and vocal lead, Jacobi de Villiers:

Performing artists from across the globe, including South Africa, have been hit hard by the pandemic. Here in South Africa the one year anniversary of our first lockdown is approaching. As a local artist I have seen the devastation that this pandemic has caused, not only to lives and families, but also careers. I felt that I wanted to do something to strike a positive note, something definitive, something beautiful. I have reached out to friends to make this show happen - and with our small team (myself, Erik accompanying on organ, Adi filming, and Gerhard doing sound), it looks like it may all come together. But without a minimum level of financial support, this show will remain just a dream. Please help us create something beautiful and meaningful to send a message of hope this Easter.

Artists

Jacobi de Villiers - Soloist

Jacobi de Villiers has performed in a range of classical and contemporary productions. She has been hailed as a “powerhouse voice and presence on stage” - Cape Argus. She has performed internationally with Cape Town Opera and was also part of a William Kentridge production for performances in Hamburg, Vienna and Paris. As a musician, singer, songwriter and performer – she embraced the South African hustle-culture to launch musical acts, singing duos, albums (Slowman) and her own productions. She has performed numerous roles in local opera productions and oratorios, including Elijah, Messiah, Petite Messe Solennelle, The Old Maid and the Thief, Magic Flute, La Cenerentola, La Traviata, The Marriage of Figaro, Maria Stuarda, Salome, Gianni Schicchi and L’Orfeo. 

Erik Dippenaar – Organ Player

From 2005 to 2011 Erik was based in London, where he played in various important early music festivals such as the Greenwich Early Music Festival, the London Handel Festival, the Brighton Early Music Festival and the Trigonale Festival der Alten Musik. His primary activity is chamber music and he has performed regularly with Florilegium, The London Handel Players, l’Avventura London, Amaranthos and Spirituoso. He also worked with the English Touring Opera, the Little Baroque Company and Ensemble Serse on a regular basis.

Erik is currently Artistic Director of the Cape Town-based baroque orchestra Camerata Tinta Barocca, a member of the period ensemble The Cape Consort and a part-time lecturer in Western music history and historical performance practice at the University of Cape Town. He is now studying towards a PhD in music at UCT, focussing on the role historical domestic keyboard instruments played in the colonisation process in Southern Africa. He has recently been awarded a Research Associateship by the University of Cape Town.

Production

Adi van der Walt - Documentary filmmaker and writer

Adi has been working in television and media since 2009. She started out as a television director while adding camera work and editing to her repertoire. She has travelled far and wide to extract stories. For the last three years she has worked with a media agency in Paris, covering events like the Volvo Ocean Race and travelling to remote parts of the world to showcase innovative education initiatives. She is a storyteller who uses audio-visual tools. Some of her latest projects include creating a content film for the new Sony FX3 cinema camera, launched end of February 2021.

Gerhard Roux - audio recordist

Gerhard Roux is an audio recordist from Stellenbosch, South Africa, and a voting member of the Recording Academy for the Grammy Awards. Gerhard has worked with the three-time Grammy Award winning group Ladismith Blach Mambazo, Grammy Award winning band Switchfoot, as well as Oscar winning composer Trevor Jones (Last of the Mohicans, Notting Hill, Mississippi Burning). Gerhard’s productions have received 16 SAMA nominations, Un certain Regard selection at the Cannes Film Festival, the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik (“German Record Critics’ Award”), an Annie Award for the film Zambezia, SAFTAS for the films Noem My Skollie and Khumba as well as appearing in the Grammy Awards submission list multiple times.