Goldfox

This performance brings together the experimental duo project Goldfox (featuring pianist and southern African instrument player Cara Stacey and cellist Nicola du Toit) and jazz guitarist Keenan Ahrends. The Goldfox duo will collaborate with long-time friend Keenan Ahrends and these three diverse musicians and sound explorers will be performing new original material created in 2022 up until 2023. Come and join us for intricate guitar lines fused with extended cello techniques, and southern African bows and lamellophones. This group brings together unlikely sounds through intricately composed and playfully improvised methods.

Cara Stacey is a South African musician, composer and musicologist and the Standard Bank Young Artist for Music 2021. She is a pianist and plays southern African musical bows (umrhubhe, uhadi, makhoyane). ?Beyond her solo performance work, Cara collaborates with visual artist Mzwandile Buthelezi and jazz guitarist Keenan Ahrends in a project titled 'The Texture of Silence'. She works with percussionist and drummer Sarathy Korwar in the project Pergola and is a member of the Night Light Collective, and Gold Fox. Cara has released a series of albums herself and through Kit Records in the UK. She has performed across southern Africa, in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Peru, the USA and Switzerland with the likes of Shabaka Hutchings, Sarathy Korwar, Dan Leavers, Galina Juritz, Natalie Mason, Beat Keller, Matchume Zango, Jason Singh and Juliana Venter. Cara is a Senior Lecturer in African Music at North-West University.

Nicola du Toit is a product designer and a musician. She plays cello and is a founding member of the ShhArt Ensemble, Goldfox duo, and Betwixt Music series. Nicola has a B.Mus in Performance and an M.Phil. in IT (specialising in Human-Computer Interaction), from the University of Cape Town. She also has an Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music in Performance (ABRSM). Her current musical interests include free improvisation, extended cello technique and electronics. As a cellist and chamber musician Nicola has had masterclasses with musicians including Maria Kliegel, Lynn Harrell, Marian Lewin, Farida Bacharova and Jill Richards. She has extensive experience as an orchestral player in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and is a former member of the South African National Youth Orchestra and the Britten-Pears Orchestra (UK). She collaborates regularly as a performer and composer with South African musicians including Galina Juritz, Matthijs van Dijk and Cara Stacey. As a digital product designer her career includes educational technology, open source and traditional publishing, front-end development, project management, UX training, e-commerce and fintech experience. She is a published author and has presented talks and workshops at numerous meetups and conferences - both locally and abroad.

Keenan Ahrends is a jazz guitarist and composer based in Johannesburg. He completed his undergraduate degree in jazz performance at the University of Cape Town and the Norwegian Academy of Music in 2009. In 2019, he completed an honours degree in performance at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. During this degree, he completed research into the life and music of prominent South African jazz guitarist Errol Dyers. During his tertiary studies combined, he studied under the likes of Jon Eberson, Wayne Bosch, Eckhard Baur, Alvin Dyers, and Andrew Lilly. Ahrends has toured extensively both within South Africa and internationally. He has performed with prominent musicians such as Louis Moholo, Feya Faku, Thandi Ntuli, Malcolm Braff, Andile Yenana, Carlo Mombelli, Afrika Mkhize, Herbie Tsoaeli, Buddy Wells, Mark Fransman, Shane Cooper, SOMI, amongst others. Notable performances have been at the Birds Eye Jazz Club (Basel, Switzerland), the Amersfoort Jazz Festival (The Netherlands), the Cape Town international Jazz Festival, Reunion Island Ocus Pocus Festival, the Joy of Jazz Festival, the Edge of Wrong festival, and the Standard Bank Youth Jazz Festival. He has also performed in venues and festivals in eSwatini (formerly Swaziland), Sweden, Norway, Mozambique and Nigeria. Ahrends is known for his evocative musical writing, his emotive improvisation and his sensitive musicianship. He remains an important part of the emerging southern African jazz arena and his flagship sound can be heard on numerous albums and in a diverse plethora of projects.