The Cape Doctor

The Cape Doctor, also known as the ‘South Easter’, has nothing to do with medicine and everything with strong winds howling in Cape Town during the summer months and a pain for any outdoor concert!

As I write this in January 2023 Summer is full on going in the Southern parts of the World and it is the time to enjoy the outside, beaches, forests and more. But in Cape Town we get confronted most days with lovely mornings with a slight breeze which turn into howling, swirling and incredibly uncomfortable wind gusts late afternoon. Great for a those wind and kite surfers on Blouberg Strand (beach), but for all others …. nah, not so great.

Now you might wonder:”What has a Doctor to do with all this wind??” Well, in the not so windy hours of the day Cape Town city bowl can get ‘smogged’ up quite badly and it a local belief that the South Easter clears Cape Town of this pollution ‘healing’ the city and is therefor the Doctor for the city.

Summer is also the time for ‘Sundowners’ (drinks during sunsets) and lovely outdoor concerts … timed in the late afternoons … when the Cape Doctor is on duty … 🫣 So there we are, full orchestra, in howling winds, trying to cling on to our music every time we need to change piece or turn the page. The Cape Town Philharmonic has been faced with this for many years so we have gigantic metal pegs that we use and are mostly ok. Until it gets so bad that entire stands get blown over and music starts flying everywhere!

This South Easter is also quite a fickle wind … it tends to just change to storm mode in seconds or could die down in minutes. Recently we played at the Silos in the V&A Waterfront and we were doing fine, little wind, all manageable until … 😳 last 3 pieces … 😲 out of nowhere … 🌪️ music starts blowing everywhere, stands dropping, people holding on to their wine glasses (the audience 😉), chaos!!😱

Our last 3 nights were fantastic! We played at Maynardville Open-Air Festival and there was a slight breeze to cool us down, but no drama winds and we had lovely concerts. Today we play at Kirstenbosch in the Summer Sunset Concerts series and I can see the wind picking up as I write this! It is a program with the fabulous Cape Town Opera Choir with many different pieces. The problem with this is that they all have different size sheet music which makes it more challenging to navigate with the pegs.

But as always, we will succeed and make a plan, that’s how we roll in South Africa: Boer maak n plan !

To be continued 🙂