Origins

The roots of orchestral music South Africa may be traced to the visiting theatrical troupes and concert artists that frequented the Cape of the dawn of the nineteenth century. Whilst it remained a Batervian Republic (1803-6), only French touring companies visited, on their way to or from Mauritius, and this trend continued during the first fifty years of British rule, so that few British artists performed in the Cape. The discovery of gold and diamond in 1884 catalysed a dramatic change of events, and the last two decades of the nineteenth century witnessed a relentlos stream of entertainers, opera troupes, musicians and dancers disembarking at such ports such as Cape Town, Durban, and Port Elizabeth, which provided access to their interior cities of Kimberly and Johannesburg.