DIANE DE BEER
Only recently finished with his annual Emperor’s show, the biggest of his year, Nataniël is up and charging full steam ahead. He was approached to do a classical concert by the Johannesburg Music Society. Titled Classical Nataniël, it will be held on Sunday afternoon at Joburg’s Linder Auditorium at 4pm (no interval). Book at Computicket.
Talking about the concert and the concept, Nataniël noted that many people might not know that his training was in classical music and that he studied as a classical pianist before he set off on what is his present career.
“The show is a tribute to timeless tunes,” he says. He starts with Bach’s St Matthew Passion followed by French composers and famous hymns he feels his voice can cope with. His next genre is world music with jazz, gospel and blues, while concluding with original music that might hopefully become classics.
“Classics mean ‘timeless’ to me,” he says, and he will be accompanied by a string quartet as well as a jazz trio in this once-off performance.
“My nerves won’t stand a repeat performance.”
He isn’t a crossover artist, he insists, and has no aspirations to be cast in the next African version of Carmen.
“My choice of music is based on my voice and tunes that I love.”
He describes himself as too old to be judged by classical purists and can’t see himself standing with one hand on the piano singing lieder. He recently launched another book of unpublished short stories from recent shows (14 English, 27 in Afrikaans) titled Zip! (Human and Rousseau, R260, Loot R229) and as he knows these have been written for performance on stage, the artist makes certain concessions like the spacing.
“When I’m telling a story on stage, there’s laughter in between and those listening are given a breather. Not so when you’re reading,” he explains. With that in mind, the spacing is crucial “otherwise you will just race through the stories without taking in the essence of what I’m trying to express”.
He embroiders: “I don’t have any literary ambition, I simply want to tell stories. My shows are much more serious and the books allow me to play.”
He felt it was time for another book especially in this very depressed world we find ourselves in. The cover was selected with joy in mind.
“I wanted the cover to stand out (that’s why it’s red), and the title had to work in Afrikaans and English, hence Zip!. I realised that in many of my past shows I have had references to zips, so why not?”
If you’re not familiar with his stories, this is a perfect example as he describes the world he knows and how he understands living his best possible life. You will laugh, not because of his descriptions necessarily (but that too!) but because of the descriptive language.
“My grandmother always used to say that every person is allergic to one thing. And you had to find out what that thing was before you ate it or got married to it,” is a typical introduction to one of these tales.
Also fresh on the market is his latest DVD which features last year’s Emperor’s show, After Animals. It’s all about the visual effect which doesn’t always translate from stage to film, but this worked magically, he believes. And the third addition to new products is his latest Checkers collection, which will be available next month.
“Included are black and silver crackers and I’m content about that,” he says.
“I have always wanted my face on a Christmas cracker!”
Finally, he has already planned his Christmas show, which starts at Pretoria’s Atterbury Theatre in the last week of November (it moves to Cape Town in February) and is titled How to Break a Bone.
He wanted something that was festive and when he thought of three things that had nostalgic impact it was tarts (to eat), wishbones and old people who dance. “All three involve broken bones, hence the title!”
All the goodies are available on Nataniël’s website or at his shows.