Shared admiration
BRAAMFONTEIN- Singer Jannie du Toit and Bert van den Brink will host shows around South Africa and the University of the Witwatersrand is one of the venues where residents can enjoy local entertainment.
Dutch piano virtuoso Bert van den Brink and Afrikaans cabaret artist Jannie du Toit have a shared admiration for singer, composer, pianist, poet, philosopher and humourist Jules de Corte. After meeting 13 years ago at a homage evening for De Corte in Eindhoven, they are now presenting a programme with the music of their idol both in South Africa and the Netherlands. The five local concerts of Grenzeloosnederlands – Jules de Corte at the beginning of September will be a preamble to the lengthier tour in Europe during October/November.
The oeuvre of De Corte, which consists of approximately 3 000 thousand songs, has received the Visser-Neerlandia prize, the Louis Davids prize, Golden Harp and Edison-awards, while De Corte also was a member of the elite Dutch Literary Society. In the second half of the 20th century, he was especially known as a keen critical observer and philosopher as well as a true poet and brilliant composer. His decades of radio broadcast made him a well-known, often controversial figure in the Netherlands – his influence notable in such endeavours as his coining the term luisterlied, which became widely accepted even in the Afrikaans cabaret genre.
As a protégé and colleague of De Corte, Bert shared stages with him as far back as the ’80’s whereas Jannie was inspired by his music in 1980 and only met him a month before his death in 1996. Jannie and Christa Steyn introduced umpteen of De Corte’s songs to South African audiences in various stage productions.
Please book now for Saturday, 6 September at 8pm.
Derrick Lewis-auditorium (adjacent to Linder) Wits, Johannesburg
Details 011 726 6969.
