Now in its eighth year, Solo Studios 2024 is taking place in Riebeek Kasteel on Women’s Day weekend, from Friday to Sunday, August 9 to 11, with 33 artists, five galleries, five live performances and a number of long table gourmet events, along with live music, theatre and poetry.
Besides the power of art to move us, Solos Studios 2024 celebrates the power of women as artists, subjects, muses, gallery owners and curators. With artists like Sharon Bischoff, Emma Willemse, Lizette Visser, Caryn Dorrington and Hannelie Strydom, gallery owners Astrid McLeod of RK Contemporary and Mary Walker, one half of the team at Pictorex, there’s strong female energy throughout the intimate art weekend. This year, Solo Studios is going beyond the canvas to share other modes of expression: music, performance, food and wine.
Four participants are superstars in their own realms:
From coast to countryside: Isabella Niehaus serves up culinary delights
The West Coast’s loss is the Riebeek Valley’s gain. Niehaus, the well-known chef who cooked a Sunday long table at her Langebaan home for over 12 years, is now diving deeper into the bounty of Swartland in her Riebeek Kasteel kitchen.
The internationally renowned cookbook author will bring her personal style — a flair for combining the rustic with fine dining prepared with the best of locally grown ingredients — to Solo Studios 2024 with two long table dinners, in the exquisite setting of the kitchen of The Valley Potager on Friday August 9 and Saturday August 10.
Niehaus, who modestly describes herself as a self-taught cook rather than a chef, was recognised by the World Gourmand Book Awards with both first place for her book Duinhuis in the category of entertainment, and best vegan cookbook for There’s a Vegan on My Stoep, her collaboration with artist Louis Janse van Vuuren.
What she refers to as “Bella’s Long Table”, is always a warm, down-to-earth and social place of delicious eating. “My food is a combination of rustic and fine dining, always seafood-oriented and about using the freshest ingredients from the Swartland and West Coast.”
The high point of each meal was interacting with guests in the open kitchen. “There’s something very special about the chef chatting with guests, without any formal division of the cooking and eating space. I love listening to their stories, and by the end of the meal, I feel like we have become friends.”
This intimate environment will be replicated at the Solo Studios dinners, with an easy flow of food, conversation and good wine from GreatHeart Wines.
Great Heart-ed winemaking
Gynore Hendricks is a winemaker with a great heart – literally. Born and bred in the Swartland, the 30-year-old is the winemaker at Great Heart Wines, the staff-empowered winery owned entirely by the employees of the Mullineux and Leeu Passant wineries, an initiative started by Chris and Andrea Mullineux in 2020. She’ll be sharing her wines and her story at Isabella Niehaus’s Long Table dinners at Solo Studios 2024 on August 9 and 10.
Hendricks is a graduate of the prestigious Cape Winemaker’s Guild Protege Programme, which she was selected for after finishing her BAgric degree in cellar technology from Elsenburg Agricultural Institute. Fortunately, she was placed at Mullineux and was mentored by legendary winemaker Andrea Mullineux, who recognised her talent and potential.
In 2018, Hendricks was appointed assistant winemaker and it was a natural evolution that led to her being named winemaker at Great Heart, where she works in the winery with vineyards hailing from Swartland, Stellenbosch and Elgin. “What has surprised me the most about becoming a winemaker is the amazing culture of support between our local winemakers as well as between the different suppliers and bodies within the South African wine industry. This type of camaraderie is hard to come by in most businesses,” she said.
The Great Heart team, from the vineyards to the winery and warehouse, all work as a collective, and being 100% owners of the winery, they benefit directly from profits. The winery produces six wines, which are distributed in South Africa and in the UK, the US, the Netherlands and Japan.
Champion of Swartland MCC
The Swartland is filled with passionate and creative types — those either born there or drawn to its beauty and possibility. This is particularly apparent when it comes to winemaking. Enter Christa von La Chevallerie, who has quietly been crafting exceptional MCC wines for years in the Paardeberg and surrounding areas.
With both the love and the palate for exceptional sparkling wine, Von La Chevallerie will be leading an interactive exploration of Swartland MCC wines at Solo Studios 2024 on August 9 and 10.
A Swartland-bBorn and bred in Swartland, Von La Chevallerie’s wine of choice has always been champagne. She studied winemaking at Germany’s prestigious Geisenheim University of Wine and Viticulture, and upon her return to South Africa, found her passion for old bush vines in Swartland. A hard worker and a bit of a renegade, she started her own independent wine venture as viticulturist, winemaker and creative director for Huis van Chevallerie in 2011, and became known for making exceptional MCC wines from Chenin Blanc and Pinotage, for her own brand and for private labels.
Bullish on Swartland wines and full of engaging stories about her wine journey, Von la Chevallerie will present The Art of Perfection, a journey through the diverse world of Kaap Klassiek and Methode Ancestral sparkling wines from the Swartland. This interactive tasting will showcase different styles, providing a comparison between contemporary expressions and their matured counterparts.
A violin virtuoso who plays for peace
When the Cape Winelands Philharmonic Orchestra takes to the stage on Sunday August 11 at Solo Studios 2024, all eyes and ears will be riveted on guest violin soloist Eriel Huang, who will be performing Camille Saint-Saȅns’s Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso with the orchestra. It is a composition Huang describes as “pyrotechnic”, as it showcases a lot of technical demands and brilliance on the violin, alongside beautiful melody lines. The piece was dedicated by the composer to Pablo de Sarasate, a violin virtuoso of the time— the mid-19th century.
Huang is a virtuoso in her own right — in music and in community building — having travelled to over 30 countries as a musician, educator, activist and consultant. Born in Taiwan, Huang and her family immigrated to South Africa in 1992, when she was six. “Growing up as a minority in newly post-apartheid South Africa, I found that music was the truest way of expression and serving different communities,” she said. “Music is so central to all aspects of life on our best and our worst days. It has a unique role in peacebuilding… We musicians play for hope, for peace and for joy, and we don’t take this task lightly… it’s a huge responsibility.”
Huang holds a music degree from the University of Pretoria, and certifications from the US state department, John Hopkins University and The International Peace & Security Institute. Having performed in all the major South African professional orchestras, she went on to be the lead violinist of the multi-award winning band Sterling EQ in 2008. She pursued a masters in music performance, social development and conflict resolution at the University of Cape Town. In 2013, she relocated to Boston for the Sistema Fellowship Programme at the New England Conservatory of Music — joining a global cohort of 50 arts educators focusing on social justice and music education, working with orchestras and arts organisations throughout the US.
Back in South Africa since 2016, she has a busy international and local concertising schedule, and regularly plays with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. Some of this year’s projects and performances include Concertmaster for the TUT Bolly-Jazz Symphonic Encounter at Unisa, performances with the Fukushima Youth Sinfonietta and collaboration with the Taipei Mazer Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, which is an annual visit to eSwatini to support Africa Ntjilo Empowerment, a community music education programme, and Strategy and Operations for OperaUCT.
Huang’s instrumental to OperaUCT’s September staging of the world premiere of Donizetti’s Dalinda, and their November collaboration with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. As if that wasn’t enough, Huang is currently pursuing an Executive MBA at the UCT Graduate School of Business with a focus on sustainability within arts and music.
The details:
Solo Studios 2024 is taking place in Riebeek Valley on Women’s Day weekend, from Friday to Sunday, August 9-11.
Tickets are available and can be purchased via Solo Studios website here and Webtickets.
To book the The Valley Potager, Isabella Niehaus and Great Heart Wines long table event, please contact 08- 820-0333 or email antonio@solostudios.co.za.
Accommodation options can be found here
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