Featured Artists
Blink Begin Orchestra
Prince Albert Primary School Senior Ensemble
Prince Albert Primary School Foundation Phase Ensemble
Prince Albert Primary School Grade 3 Orchestra
Albert College Strings
“Voices of the Karoo”
The Kaleidoscope Music & Arts Festival opens not with arrival, but with emergence. Voices of the Karoo brings together more than one hundred young musicians—from Blink Begin Crèche, Prince Albert Primary School, Albert College, and Kweekvallei—many of whom are stepping onto a stage, or holding an instrument, for the very first time.
Over the past eighteen months, the ARCO-PACT Strings Project has provided free instrumental tuition to these learners, creating a space in which music becomes both a discipline and a language of connection. What we hear this morning is not simply repertoire, but the sound of learning in motion: early techniques taking shape, listening deepening, confidence growing.
The programme draws on Afrikaans folk song alongside South African musical traditions, from Sarie Marais and Suikerbossie to Pata Pata and Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. Familiar melodies are reimagined for young string players, allowing cultural inheritance and new musical experience to meet. This is a concert rooted in access and shared opportunity, but also in something quieter: the act of beginning, together.
The ARCO-PACT Orchestras are directed by Principal Teacher Tiaan Uys and Assistant Teacher Aiden Stalmeester
Concert Programme
Blink Begin Orchestra
- Jan Pierewiet – Traditional Afrikaans
- Sarie Marais – Traditional Afrikaans
PAPS (Prince Albert Primary School) Senior Ensemble
- Blouberg Vastrap – Adam Tas Koonsertina
- Al le die berge nog so blou – Traditional Afrikaans
- Thula Baba – Traditional Zulu/South African
PAPS Foundation Phase Ensemble
- Hansie Slim – Traditional Afrikaans
- Vader Jakob (Frere Jacques) – Traditional
PAPS Grade 3 Orchestra
- Shosholoza – Traditional Nguni
- Pata Pata – Miriam Makeba
- Special Star
Albert College Strings
- Suikerbossie ek wil jou he – Traditional Afrikaans
- Bad Guy – Billie Eilish
- Lisa se klavier
TUTTI ARCO
- Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika – The South African National Anthem
