The Cape Consort launches its Monteverdi Project with 3 consecutive Sunday evening concerts at the Fugard Studio on 12, 19, 26 February.

The Matrix of the Madrigal takes the listener on a fascinating exploration of Monteverdi's madrigals unveiling an innovative use of animated text projections. Supported by synchronized translations, the Cape Consort‘s beautifully blending voices accompanied by period instruments in the rewarding Fugard Studio’s acoustics will contribute towards an extraordinarly unified sensory experience.

Renaissance poetry treats the topic of love as a consuming, deeply unsettling, initiatory experience, inevitably leaving one or both parties fatally wounded. Constant references to an underlying matrix of recurring images include those of the armed god of love, of piercing eyes, lethal glances, cruel beauty, torn hearts as well as the themes of flight and pursuit. Monteverdi’s subtle yet striking translations of this imagery into richly sonorous, musically congruous scenes, firmly establishes music as the emotionally stirring and communicative medium we know it to be. The Cape Consort - a group of solo singers and 2 basso continuo players - is fast establishing itself as the leading Early Music Ensemble in South Africa in terms of both introducing exciting new repertoire to South African audiences as well as performing exclusively on period instruments. The Consort‘s artistic approach is aligned with the international Historically Informed Performance Pratice Early Music movement.

The Consort was founded by Andrew Cruickshank and Hans Huyssen, who together with Charles Ainslie and Lente Louw have been responsible for its successful growth. Patrons are invited to meet the musicians on the theatre’s roof-top deck after the show, where drinks will be for sale.

Tickets ( R100 / R120) are available through Computicket.com, 0861 915 8000 or via the Fugard Theatre’s box office on 021 461 4554.