Starlight Concert at Vergelegen

Brilliant Starlight Concert     We had the most stunning evening at this annual tour de force concert at Vergelegen, where they showcased local talent this year.

Invited guests were very well looked after

Lynne usually drops an emotional tear or two at the sheer wonderment of the performances. This time the South African Youth Choir and the full Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra started with the Nation Anthem and continued with a tribute to Nelson Mandela - a superb arrangement of The Impossible Dream, from Man of La Mancha.

The queues for "facilities" at the interval were mercifully short, because we were well catered for.

We rocked the night away with Freddie Mercury and Queen songs, performed by the orchestra and Joseph Clark, our local expert Freddie Mercury impersonator. Several numbers had the audience bopping, rocking and singing in the aisles. We had performances from two stunning (local) opera singers Musa Nkuna, who had returned for the concert from the Berlin Opera, where he is performing and Friedel Mitas, whose beautiful soprano voice is clear as a bell.

Nomfundo Xaluva had us singing along and swaying to all the wonderful Miriam Makeba and Brenda Fassie songs, backed by the Choir. Charlize Berg - talented 19 year old Afrikaans vocalist sang a selection of Afrikaans songs as a tribute to the late Johannes Kerkorrel. Ian von Memerty skilfully and professionally produced the whole event and also performed and delighted us. .

But the star of the evening is always Richard Cock, the maestro conductor, whose humour and knowledge gathers this whole concert together so well. We had a very funny audience participation in the 1812 Overture, where we were the cannons, bursting brown paper bags – hysterical. And there were many, many more talented acts.

Thank you all at Rand Merchant Bank for organising and sponsoring yet another blockbuster concert