Caitlin’s European Debut with ‘South Africa in Colours’!

Seriously? Vienna – Classical music capital of the world and I make my European debut there of all places! What an experience though..

The occasion:  Africa Village and “South Africa in Colours” festival. ‘A unique South African festival established to promote African culture, arts and economy to new markets through numerous intensive and diverse events that are organized at several host city locations over 4-5 days, attracting large number of visitors and general public attention. It’s an incredible celebration of  South African culture, traditions and people mixed with advanced contemporary presentation techniques. Integrated live shows, presentations, performances, exhibitions and conferences…’

After a week of rehearsals in Johannesburg we hit Vienna! What a beautiful city..although I don’t have a major love of classical music I truly felt like I was in the middle of a place with incredible cultural history..my time there was very special to me.

The show was a hit! We had way more people trying to get in than we were able to accommodate, on the last night the queue into the venue was the length of the entire Museumsquartier courtyard – just amazing! I performed very African-esque music for the production which was a bit of a challenge for me – not really my cup of tea, I don’t do the atmospheric stuff very well. For the finale though I had fun running up and down the catwalk zam-foot (barefoot) style performing ‘Mbube!’

I had some interesting TV interviews and made the evening news too, here are some links to some online reviews of the show:
-The Best of Vienna Blog
-Deutschkurs Blog
-Helmut Steiner Photography Blog
-Kawther Salam – Europa & Palestine News

I did get to do some exploring during the days, I made a point of visiting Mozart’s house (I could totally imagine that manic laughter from ‘Amadeus’ echoing up and down the stairwell) and the butterfly house ‘Schmetterlinghaus’ on my last day. I’m only sorry I didn’t get anywhere near Salzburg to check out the ‘Sound of Music’ locations…maybe not the most culturally significant of tours but man I love that movie!

                        In Mozart’s house!

I was so stoked to get to perform a solo matinee show, doing more of my own kind of music – good times! Check out this video of me performing ‘Waka Waka (This time for Africa)’ with some of the dancers from Zama Zisa dance group:

The dancers gave me the Zulu nickname ‘Khetiwe’ – which means ‘the chosen one’ – I actually respond to it now, we obviously spent way too much time together – love those talented guys and girls!

An awesome experience and a fantastic European debut – I could get used to this international electric violinist status! Thanks for everything Makhaya & Africa Village!

Taking it easy at Parliament building on Ringstraße…