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IOL News
36 minutes ago
- IOL News
Old Mutual Music at the Lake celebrates Father's Day with Just Jinjer and Watershed
Just Jinjer will be perfoming their chart-topping classics at the Old Mutual Music at the Lake concert on Father's Day in Durban. Image: Supplied What better way to spend Father's Day than enjoying an unforgettable afternoon of music, family, and celebration at the Old Mutual Music at the Lake concert on Sunday, 15 June. South African music icons Just Jinjer and Watershed will take to the stage in the scenic surrounds of the Durban Botanic Gardens, bringing their timeless hits and electric live energy to this much-loved outdoor venue. Attendees can bring picnic baskets, camping chairs, and cooler boxes, and settle in for an afternoon of legendary local music, surrounded by lush greenery and the joyful spirit of Father's Day. Watershed will be performing at the Old Mutual Music at the Lake Father's Day concert at Botanic Gardens. Image: Supplied Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Proceeds from the event support the Garden Window Project – an innovative people and plant development initiative that forms part of the Durban Botanic Gardens' commitment to community upliftment and environmental education. 'At Old Mutual, we're proud to support the Music at the Lake series—an uplifting celebration of local talent, unity, and cultural pride. This partnership is part of our ongoing commitment to building stronger communities and creating meaningful moments of joy. "Events like these, especially on special occasions like Father's Day, offer families the chance to connect, celebrate, and make lasting memories together. We believe in the power of music to bring people closer, and we're honoured to play a role in making that happen in the heart of Durban's iconic Botanic Gardens,' said Bandile Mngoma, Senior Manager: Sponsorships & Events at Old Mutual. Expect the unmistakable vocals and chart-topping classics from Just Jinjer, as well as the soulful songwriting and soaring melodies of Watershed—two of South Africa's most celebrated bands—sharing one stage in a rare and special live collaboration. Tickets are on sale from Webtickets. For more information, visit or call the Info Centre on 068 5981396. THE MERCURY
The Citizen
an hour ago
- The Citizen
Don't miss the power and passion of the Drakensberg Boys Choir at Joburg Theatre!
Gauteng music lovers, the hills may be alive with music, but this June the harmonies and rhythms of the Drakensberg Boys Choir will echo through the city's heart. After a sensational home festival in the Drakensberg that drew capacity crowds, the internationally acclaimed Drakensberg Boys Choir brings their unforgettable sound to the Nelson Mandela Stage at Joburg Theatre from 18 to 21 June 2025 for their much-anticipated Music in the City 2025 showcase. While all four nights promise vocal brilliance and moving performances, the Friday and Saturday evening Drakie-only concerts are the heart of the celebration – and the ones you absolutely don't want to miss. Spotlight on Friday and Saturday: Pure Drakie Power On Friday, 20 June, at 18:30, the Drakensberg Boys Choir will take centre stage with a thrilling performance featuring their signature blend of classical choral works, African rhythms, and high-energy Afro-pop medleys. Then, on Saturday, 21 June, at 19:00, the Gala Concert will close out the festival with a musical spectacle of epic proportions – a culmination of months of preparation, artistry, and raw talent. This is not just a concert; it's a celebration of everything the Drakies stand for as a world-renowned choir. These are the flagship performances of the season, and the boys have poured everything into them, says Jacques Linde, recently appointed Head of Choral Activities and Conductor. The energy, the choreography, the repertoire – it's going to be an unforgettable experience. Tickets for Friday and Saturday range from R280 to R420, and they're moving fast. Seats are limited, and previous editions have sold out quickly, so book now to secure your place at this extraordinary musical celebration. Tickets are available at and or call 0861 670 670 for more info. Why the weekend matters The Drakensberg Boys Choir's recent Music in the Mountains festival proved why the group remains one of South Africa's most beloved cultural exports. With sold-out performances, collaborations with the KZN Youth Orchestra, and guest choirs from Zimbabwe and beyond, the festival affirmed the Choir's mission: Music is our Ministry. Now, the boys are ready to bring that same spirit to Johannesburg – and you're invited. Whether you're a long-time fan or a first-time listener, don't miss this chance to experience the Drakensberg Boys Choir's passion, precision, and pure joy in their element. Book your seats for Friday and Saturday today – and be part of something truly unforgettable. Unlike the collaborative Voices of Unity concerts earlier in the week, Friday and Saturday concerts are exclusively Drakensberg Boys Choir, showcasing only the boys, their music, and their powerful message of hope. Expect soaring harmonies, percussive energy, and the goosebump-inducing performance that has earned the Drakies a global fanbase. 'Music in the City has become a cornerstone of our calendar', says Hendrik Bekker, Executive Head of the Drakensberg Boys Choir School. 'It connects us to new audiences and reminds people that we are raising incredible musicians and future leaders. The event is also a vital fundraiser for the school's bursary programme, which helps gifted boys from all walks of life access world-class musical education, regardless of financial means. Nothing unites a nation like music. The Drakies are a truly South African cultural asset.' Every ticket sold helps us nurture the next generation of talent. It's more than just a night out – an investment in something extraordinary. Book Tickets now At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading! Stay in the know. Download the Caxton Local News Network App Stay in the know. Download the Caxton Local News Network App here
Daily Maverick
2 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Writing what it felt like — Barry Gilder on memory, movement and making art in the struggle
At the Fire Hour stands as both tribute and testimony, a quiet but insistent record of what it meant to survive the storm and to still want to sing. Barry Gilder's novel, At the Fire Hour, is a deeply layered reflection on loyalty, memory and what it costs to live a life split between political commitment and artistic longing. In the book, we meet Bheki Makhathini, a South African writer and exile suspected of betraying the ANC. Suspicion clings to him. Was he a sellout? A spy? This question is at the novel's quietly devastating core. Gilder uses this tension not only to explore personal betrayal but to reflect on the paranoia that haunted the liberation movement's underground networks. Like Gilder, Bheki is a young creative who leaves South Africa in 1976 and goes into exile. He completes a creative writing master's degree in the UK, undergoes military training in Angola and the Soviet Union and returns home after the unbanning of the ANC. His life and the novel become a meditation on the high stakes of political belonging. Fiction becomes a tool to wrestle with what it means to be doubted by your own comrades, and what is lost in that rupture. But this is not simply a political thriller. It is also a love story, a story of creative loss and an intimate sketch of exile. At the Fire Hour spans continents, mirroring the movement of activists scattered by apartheid. These spaces are rendered not as exotic backdrops, but as textured zones of struggle, reflection and belonging. Gilder, who lived through many of these dislocations, lends authenticity to these passages. Through Bheki's voice, he evokes the haunting uncertainty of displacement and the fragility of the revolutionary self. There's an important strand in the book on surveillance and the psychological toll of being under suspicion. The novel's emotional gravity lies not in action but in atmosphere: the loneliness of exile, the fragility of trust and the slow erosion of the self under constant doubt. Gilder does not absolve his characters easily. Instead, he allows the complexity of revolutionary life to settle in quietly, asking the reader to sit with uncertainty. One of the most arresting sequences in the novel explores the brutal techniques of interrogation: Bheki is forced to stand on a brick for five hours, deprived of sleep for two days and nights, subjected to electric shocks on his testicles. These methods are not described for sensational effect, but as part of a system designed to fracture belief, to extract not only information, but ideological collapse. Gilder documents how the body is targeted in the hope that the will might break, and how survival becomes a kind of guilt. In the aftermath of such violence, the doubts of comrades cut deeper. Was Bheki released because he cooperated? Or because they could not break him? The anguish of this experience crystallises in a poem written by Bheki, inserted into the novel: words do not slice skin shred flesh shatter bone dethrone dictators. This tension is echoed in the novel's interplay between art and politics. Bheki, like Gilder, is torn between creative expression and the imperatives of the struggle. 'The more I got involved in the struggle, the fewer songs I wrote,' Gilder told me. 'Things got really hectic… writing reports to Lusaka, moving from safe house to safe house. Wally Serote was writing a novel during that time. I wasn't. I haven't written a song since the 1980s.' Creativity became a casualty of the revolution. The silence was not chosen, but enforced by necessity. Yet in fiction, he rediscovers voice. The novel, which began as part of Gilder's PhD submission, is woven with poems and short stories written by Bheki, forming a narrative within a narrative. 'I kind of really enjoyed getting into his creative head,' Gilder said. 'It helps say things more concisely than one can in the narrative part of the book.' These insertions do more than embellish the story; they deepen it, giving texture to the private interiority that historical accounts so often flatten. At the Fire Hour is also a commentary on the cultural politics of the ANC in exile. Gilder vividly reconstructs events like the Culture and Resistance Conference in Gaborone and Culture in Another South Africa in Amsterdam. These were not peripheral events; they were sites where politics and creativity met, where resistance was choreographed through poems, music and song. Gilder was present at these gatherings. His fictionalisation of them pulses with insight and detail that only a participant could provide. What makes this novel essential is not simply its storytelling, but its function as a historical intervention. In a country still wrestling with the afterlives of struggle, Gilder insists on fiction's power to hold emotional truths that the archive cannot. 'Historians tell us what happened,' he said. 'Novelists tell us what it felt like.' This is not nostalgia. It is reckoning. The novel is a form of political memory work – an attempt to break the silence around suspicion, doubt and betrayal that was never truly resolved. By the end, the novel ceases to be about one man's guilt or innocence. It becomes something far more collective – a mosaic of those who made the movement, lived through exile and continue to carry its shadows. Gilder reminds us that the story of liberation is not just about triumph. It's about what it costs to keep going. At the Fire Hour stands as both tribute and testimony, a quiet but insistent record of what it meant to survive the storm and to still want to sing. DM
