Montreux Jazz Festival makes African debut in Franschhoek

The Fairest Cape is tuning up for a historic crescendo. South Africa will host a world-class gathering of global jazz greats, a weekend where the nation’s musical diversity, choreography and genre-bending creativity converge in the valley of wines and culinary culture: Franschhoek. Founded in 1967 by Claude Nobs, the Montreux Jazz Festival has become an unmissable event and a source of stories and legendary performances.

Now, the legend is stepping onto African soil for the first time in six decades, since the Swiss event was born in the Alps. Hosted each summer on the shores of Lake Geneva, the Montreux Jazz Festival attracts around 250 000 visitors each year and has hosted legends, among them Miles Davis, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Prince, David Bowie and Elton John. Organised by the Fondation du Festival de Jazz de Montreux, the festival is renowned for its creative collaborations, legendary performances and global spirit of artistic exchange.

Nedbank has slipped into rhythm as presenting partner, ushering in a pantheon of international performers and home-grown stars for the inaugural Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek — the first African edition of one of the world’s most revered music institutions. Music lovers will be spoilt for choice as the repertoire stretches across continents, cultures and soundscapes. Cape Town PR consultant Jeni Fletcher says the programme has expanded boldly, adding a powerhouse line-up of 15 DJs, vinyl selectors and musical tastemakers, “marking a bold statement for its first African edition”.

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For audiences travelling the 75km stretch from Cape Town, the journey becomes part of the spectacle: mountains rising like cathedral walls, vineyards rolling into the horizon and the promise of a weekend where jazz becomes pilgrimage, homage and celebration. Franschhoek is historically important because it is one of South Africa’s earliest European-settled valleys and the heartland of the French Huguenot diaspora, whose arrival in 1688 profoundly shaped the Cape’s agriculture, wine culture and architecture. Its legacy is visible today in the farms, surnames, monuments and Cape Dutch–French cultural blend that define the valley.

The hordes of music aficionados will also stroll and dance through this poignant history. The concerts are anchored in the joy of jazz, a genre shaped by generations of geniuses, visionaries and lyrical alchemists from Alabama to Atlantis. For the first time, Montreux arrives in a town where vines, wines and déjà vu meet celebrity chef Reuben Riffel and Franschhoek’s culinary artisans, all preparing to feed thousands of jazz devotees from Friday to Sunday, 27 to 29 March. Franschhoek is a microcosm of South Africa’s layered history, with its indigenous roots (Khoisan), colonial-era migration and religious persecution (Huguenots), agricultural innovation (viniculture) and cultural blending that shaped the Cape’s identity.

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