Sunday 8 November 2026
Drostdy Theatre, Stellenbosch · Doors 12:30
An afternoon of music, stories and food, in aid of the Klein Karoo Leessentrum.
The afternoon
On 8 November 2026, two of South Africa’s most loved performers share the Drostdy Theatre stage in Stellenbosch for one afternoon. Every seat helps build the Klein Karoo Leessentrum, where children learn to read before they start school.
Arrival at the Drostdy Theatre, Stellenbosch.
Harry Sideropoulos at the table: a three-course plated Mediterranean lunch, with his stories between the courses, and the launch of Every Taste a Memory.
Mauritz Lotz on stage with Schalk Joubert, Anjulie Nock and Peter Auret.
Plektrum · The man behind the music
A small-town boy who chased a dream all the way to the world’s greatest stages.
Mauritz Lotz is the South African musician with more than 4 000 recordings to his credit. He has two Grammy awards to his name, and is a composer, arranger and guitar genius who commands respect locally and internationally.
For the very first time, Lotz lifts the veil on his remarkable career and eccentric talent. In this intimate, personal and authentic production he talks about his origins, and shares the stories, visuals and music of his remarkable life in a moving and expansively honest manner. The musicians sharing the stage with him are the cream of our industry.
Closer to home, his hand is on music this audience already knows. He has worked with Coenie de Villiers for decades, writing many of the arrangements and sharing the stage with him. You may well have seen him in Stille vuur, alongside Coenie, Frieda van den Heever and the novelist Deon Meyer.
Plektrum played the KKNK in Oudtshoorn in 2026, in the Klein Karoo itself. On 8 November it comes to Stellenbosch for the Karoo children the festival town sits among.
On stage for this Plektrum afternoon
On stage · Mauritz Lotz, Schalk Joubert, Anjulie Nock, Peter Auret
Director and writer · Ingrid Howard
Producer · Tale Be Told Productions
Composition and musical adaptation · Mauritz Lotz
Every Taste a Memory · Food. Stories. Song.
The chef and food lover of the afternoon. You are in for a treat.
A boy who grew up to break bread with the world’s giants, and kept every story.
Johannesburg comedian, entertainer and celebrity chef Harry Sideropoulos has spent more than three decades bringing people together through laughter, music and stories that celebrate the extraordinary found in ordinary lives.
Now he brings Every Taste a Memory to Stellenbosch, inviting audiences to dine from the very recipes that shaped his life, with his stories told between the courses, Mandela included.
Comedian · Entertainer · Celebrity chef
The cookbook
The afternoon also marks the launch of Harry’s debut cookbook: Mediterranean recipes and family stories from his Greek heritage, with roots in Constantinople and Cappadocia, where every memory finds its way back to the table.
On the menu
Food is often the last place memory leaves us.
Where every seat goes · Read. Dream. Grow.
Literacy is the very first door that opens for a child. The Leessentrum opens it, and then keeps going.
It is an education and development centre that helps children strengthen the skills they need to succeed at school: better reading levels, stronger maths foundations, and practical help with the schoolwork that is due tomorrow.
Sport and physical activities form an important part of the programme, building confidence, discipline, teamwork and overall wellbeing. The aim is to find where each child needs support, and to close those gaps through consistent, practical assistance. Further along that road sit real skills: cooking, tourism, music and mechanics.
Klein Karoo Word4Word Lees Sentrum (Reg. No. 2016/210400/08) is a non-profit organisation in Matjiesrivier, Oudtshoorn, established in April 2015 on the property of Swartberg Country Manor.
The mission began with a focus on helping children with reading difficulties, offering them hope, confidence and a love for reading. Over time the work expanded in response to greater social needs, and now encompasses food, clothing, amenities and holistic child support.
In 2023 the Mzansi Youth Choir walked onto America’s Got Talent and became the first act in the show’s history to receive all six Golden Buzzers at once. “You defined what this show absolutely is all about,” Simon Cowell told them.
Mauritz has worked on a number of that choir’s tracks, including the arrangement of the version they sang that night, Nightbirde’s It’s OK. For many of those young singers, that performance started a career.
The story starts before the stage.The song arrived at a time the world needed it. The choir recorded it long before America’s Got Talent. Not for an audition, but to sing it back to her. To tell her that her music had reached a country on the other side of the planet.
She saw it. “I can’t believe a choir in Africa wants to sing my music,” she said.
Mauritz did that arrangement together with Sidumo Nyamezele, the choir’s music leader. Jane Marczewski, who performed as Nightbirde, died in February 2022. By the time the choir sang it on the AGT stage in 2023, it was already a tribute. What followed was something nobody could have planned: a posthumous single with her, and a stage with Coldplay.
It is, in the end, a simple story. Joy and hope are what people need. Music was only how it reached them.
On 8 November the same hands go to work for Karoo children.
Literacy → School-ready → Bursaries → Real skills
The afternoon isn’t the destination. It’s the seed.
One afternoon · 240 seats · One lasting legacy
Tickets & booking
Become a table captainPay R3 000 to hold the table, gather your ten, and settle the balance by 25 October.
160 seats
Reserve a VIP tableWhile seats last
Book an experience80 seats
Book at Webtickets
R650 per copy, signed by Harry on the day. Pre-order only, because the print run for the launch is limited.
We handle the books ourselves, together with your booking, so your copy appears on the same invoice as your seat.
Tables of ten, or individual seats placed at a shared table. Booked with Leoni Fourie, event partnership manager.
Book online Leoni@bushstay.co.za +27 81 311 9211 WhatsApp LeoniPre-order a copy on its own, whether or not you are coming on the day.
Pre-order a signed copyCan’t attend? A direct donation does the same work as a seat.
Donate online Banking details belowMuch of the work on the new album was done by the formidable Mauritz Lotz, whom people know as a guitarist, but who is just as wonderful a producer.
Food becomes the backdrop to our lives. We happy, we eat. We sad, we eat. We gather around a table, we break bread, we talk, we share and sometimes we cry, and most times we shout a lot. But that is, I guess, who we are.
A master without airs.
What happens at a Shabbat table is an actor’s dream.
Guitar genius Mauritz Lotz brings his orchestral work to the stage as a full-fledged composer and co-creator.
In an age that often leaves us feeling disconnected, Harry Sideropoulos creates the rare kind of experience where people feel truly seen. Through warmth, humour, talent, magnificent food and quiet generosity, he reminds us that our stories matter.
Prolific virtuoso guitarist and arranger. Extremely hard to get hold of, but worth it when you do.
Outrageous, that’s me, baby. Bigger, bolder and full of frolicking fun.
On an evening with Harry
In an age that often leaves us feeling disconnected, Harry Sideropoulos creates the rare kind of experience where people feel truly seen. Through warmth, humour, talent, magnificent food and quiet generosity, he reminds us that our stories matter, that kindness endures, and that the simplest moments shared around a table can restore something we didn’t realise we’d lost.
Carol Keeley
Our sponsors
In aid of
Proudly supported by
Media partners
Sunday 08November2026
Drostdy Theatre, Stellenbosch
3-Course Sunday Lunch@ 12:30 for 13:00
“Plektrum” Music Show@ 15:00
Lunch & Show R1 200 pp
Show only R250 pp
All proceeds go to the Klein Karoo Leessentrum
