18 FEB. DEREK GRIPPER & ALEX VAN HEERDEN
Derek Gripper on guitar and voice
with Alex van Heerden on trumpet, accordion and voice
compositions by Derek Gripper

Who is Derek?
Derek is a guitar player. A particularly good one. He is also a fine composer, in the league of a Mac McKenzie yet in a different direction. Derek is also playing with Cape Town sounds, he's also a musical painter. With his western classical education and Indian classical education, and his years in punk bands, rock bands and playing just about everything, Derek hears with different ears. He is one of the young cats on the vanguard.

Click here for greater detail on Derek .

Alex is another one of the city's central musical characters, hence he appeared twice on one weekend, with completely different musicians. He plays with Robbie Jansen, Mac McKenzie and Hilton Schilder, as well as with people like Les Javan and Jethro Louw. While he's got a jazz move going, Alex is also a pop man, with projects both here and in Sweden. More on Alex here .

What did we want to achieve?

The idea was to build on something that Derek and Alex had done before, but now in a more intimate setting and somewhat simplified.

Derek and Alex had previously worked with Xhosa traditional musician and icon Madosini. She had performed with them and the Sontonga Quartet, a team of excellent young classical musicians playing South African compositions. Derek had written a piece for them with Madosini.

We had done it once before at the Convention Centre, as background music. Now we wanted to do it as the attraction.

Madosini,  unfortunately, let us down. She double-booked herself a gig in the Eastern Cape and never made it to the gig. Alex and Derek performed alone, which was beautiful nonetheless but what a pity not to have Madosini. She adds a layer of beauty. Hopefully in the future we can make this happen.