Cape music picks: February 25 2011

Sedate supper club circuit or clamourous music festival?

• It’s no secret that acoustic jazz artists aren’t exactly catered for when it comes to suitable live performance spaces in Cape Town. Welcome news then that award-winning pianist Paul Hanmer and steel pan virtuoso Dave Reynolds bring their nationwide tour of Universities and Townships to a pair of intimate venues in the Mother City this weekend. Besides showcasing new compositions for piano and steelpans, the broad aim of their tour is to reach out to the communities of South Africa and encourage interaction and growth, appreciation and understanding through music. The duo also host a master class and lunch time concert at the Endler Hall in Stellenbosch from 11am to 2pm on Friday. Saturday’s workshop is at the Battswood Centre, Grassy Park at noon.

  Chisholm Recital Room (C7), SA College of Music, University of Cape Town, February 25, 8.30pm. Entrance is R50 or R20 (students). Tickets available at the door. Rainbow Room, Mandela Rhodes Place, Burg Street, CBD, February 26. 8pm. Entrance is R50. Booking is recommended. Tel: 021 422 1428.

• ‘How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it?” asked Nina Simone. Swiss-Ghanaian singer-songwriter Oy (aka Joy Frempong) knows. Much like her hero Simone, Oy’s solo performances are intimate, intense experiences for audiences. Handling both vocals and electronics she blends naïve innocence and playful unpredictability with deep, defiant subject matter. Expect a Dadaist-inspired trip through some of her childhood memories and an odyssey into the outer limits of musical expression through a genre-imploding mash up of soul, hip-hop, spoken word, improv, electronic, jazz, classical, and rock influences as showcased on her solo album First Box Then Walk. As one commentator observed, if it were a screenplay, [the album] could easily be the next Michel Gondry film.”

  Club Voom Voom, 70 Loop Street, Cape Town, March 3, 8pm.