Motet & Madrigal (2026 Cape Town Baroque Festival – EVENT 2)

Motet & Madrigal explores the evolution of two of Western music’s most enduring vocal forms through the lens of instrumental performance. Beginning with the Trecento madrigals of Francesco Landini and the isorhythmic motets of Guillaume de Machaut, the programme traces a rich lineage that culminates in the expressive madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi and the architectural brilliance of Johann Sebastian Bach‘s motets.

Performed by Here be Dragons, each work is carefully deconstructed and reimagined for an ensemble of historical instruments. Rather than treating these masterpieces as untouchable monuments, the programme returns them to a creative process of listening, adaptation and discovery. Original texts remain present through projection, preserving the rhetorical and poetic worlds from which the music emerged while inviting audiences to experience the relationship between word and sound in a new way.

By revealing the shared musical language that connects sacred and secular repertoire across four centuries, Motet & Madrigal invites listeners to hear history not as a sequence of fixed artefacts, but as a living tradition continually remade through performance.

This concert will be followed by a short panel discussion about the concert with members of Here Be Dragons, led by Anna Stoddard.

Here Be Dragons: Joshua Frank (recorders), Annien Shaw & Odile Burden (violin, viola), Jan-Hendrik Harley (plucked strings, Artistic Director), Mariechen Meyer (double bass) and John Pringle (percussion)

Date: Sunday, 20 September 2026
Time: 15:00-16:00. Panel discussion: 16:10-16:30.
Venue: St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church Hall, De Waterkant, Cape Town
Tickets: R280, R240 (pensioners), R100 (learners/students)

Enquiries can be directed to [email protected].

BOOK HERE

***

This is Event 2 in our 2026 Cape Town Baroque Festival. Click here for a downloadable summary of all the festival events. We are offering a limited number of discounted festival passes, which include access to all four festival concerts (i.e., excluding Event 1, which is an educational event). Book a festival pass here.

The 2026 Cape Town Baroque Festival is generously supported by the Rupert Musiekstigting, the Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra, Bill van Rensburg, and Gillian Lindner.