Hooray for Hessequa Harmonie!

The 2020 Hessequa Harmonie arts festival will go ahead as planned – live! – in Heidelberg, Western Cape, from 15 to 19 September.

“We thought long and hard about this year’s festival in light of the Covid-19 pandemic and decided to go ahead with a live event – with strict protocols in place, of course,” says festival founder and director, Niël Rademan.

Each event will be very small, with audiences of 30 to 50 people, depending on the venue.

“If the demand presents itself, we will schedule a second performance to accommodate the extra guests.”

Rehearsals are well under way for this curated festival, which features an assortment of music, literature and theatrical productions, as well as an art exhibition.

“Each and every artist has been hand picked to ensure a stellar line-up that caters to diverse artistic tastes,” says Niël.

Anne Havemann-Serfontein and Celeste Nel are major Hessequa Harmonie fans. They will be attending this year’s event. We posed a couple of questions to them about the festival:

• How did you come to know about Hessequa Harmonie?
  The grapevine and very good friends told us about this exceptional event where the classics meet the “platteland” for a very unique experience. It is not just a break away from the fast pace, but also an experience that feeds the soul. It also appealed to us because it was different to other arts festivals that we had experienced before. We were curious as Heidelberg was unknown to us and we heard wonderful things about the town and its surrounding areas. Our expectations were exceeded!

• What are you looking forward to at the event?
  Excellent music, art and word art, beautiful setting, wonderful people. The quality of the entertainment is really great – a worthwhile experience. Wonderful artists are brought in, but with lots of local involvement too. The attention is personal. Everyone knows everyone. And you will meet everyone else in the town hall. The road trip to Heidelberg is also memorable and part of the whole experience!

• In a nutshell…
  We loved everything about the event and are looking forward to returning this year. We love the fact that Heidelberg is a special place and can’t wait to meet with our friends from Gauteng!

One of those friends is CN&CO’s Carel Nolte, who Niël describes as “… a wonderful sounding board.

“Carel was instrumental in motivating us to apply for funding from Business and Arts South Africa, which we received – and which we are very grateful for.”

CN&CO is also involved as a sponsor of the opening event, with Carel co-hosting the art exhibition. In addition, CN&CO provided the online ticketing platform at www.cnandcoevents.com, and a number of our team mates will be among the festival-goers.

The list of performers is a veritable who’s who of the Afrikaans arts world – far too many to list in this blog… but check out the programme below and you’re bound to come across several familiar names and faces.

That booking site again: www.cnandcoevents.com.