SONVANGERS: A Swellendam Celebration

SONVANGERS A Swellendam Celebration

Saturday 14 November 2026 14:30

NG Kerksaal, Swellendam

A sonvanger catches the sun and throws its light around a room. The people on this stage do that with music.

The Hanepoot Brass Band from Montagu play goema, mbaqanga and marabi, much of it their own, and once they start it's very hard to sit still. Their bandleader, trombonist Jannie "Hanepoot" van Tonder, spent the mid-1980s on the road with the African Jazz Pioneers and later toured with Johannes Kerkorrel's Gereformeerde Blues Band. Tino Singe, who grew up here and now sings all over the country, takes us through the afternoon and sings a few songs along the way. The Zolani Youth Choir from Ashton won the Grand Prix at an international a cappella competition in Moscow in 2024, and you'll hear why.

Swellendam's own are right there with them. Zikhona Badella sings Sonvanger, the much-loved Afrikaans song that gave the concert its name. Carel Olivier sings his own songs, tender and intimate, and Caleb van der Walt and Stephen Law bring their banjos. Young players from the Progress Brass Band sit in with Hanepoot.

At the heart of the afternoon, Tammy Filander comes home to sing Joy's Paradise Road, a song South Africans have been singing along to for more than forty years, with the choir and the whole company on stage around her.

Hanepoot play us home at the end, and they'll still be playing as you walk out into the afternoon.

Every piece is Southern African. Music made under our own sun, for the whole town.

Doors open at 14:00. About an hour and three quarters, no interval.

Dedicated to the memory of Odwa Mvunge, founder of the Zolani Youth Choir. He was a sonvanger too.

Tickets R100 Students R50 Also at the door

Presented by the Swellendam Music Society

Produced by Braam du Toit and Bobbie Fitchen

With thanks to Foundation Coke