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Cape Town Opera Voices - Donald Graham Archive

Draft 2/4/2026 - NOT FOR PUBLIC USE BEFORE -  10/4/2026

In the 1980s and '90s Cape Town music and recording engineer and sound system enthusiast, the late Donald Graham, released several dozen records on vinyl and cassette tape, on his GSE Claremont Records label. One of his most popular releases was titled, Beautiful Cape Town - Fine Music, "Voices".

The compilation set out to showcase Cape Town orchestras and artists from live recordings Donald had made as well as some he acquired the rights to from the 1970's. He was a specialist in live recordings and doing the editing on his analogue tapes and later his digital recordings. 

The artist performances on this compilation are as he heard and captured on his microphones and are not enhanced, in other words completely analog acoustic allowing for some wonderful dynamics.

(c) SONGWRIGHTS PUBLISHERS

There were fourteen tracks in all, featuring such performers by, Joseph Gabriels, Lynn Julius, Aviva Pelham, Andrea Catzel, Sally Presant, Carina Cronje and Oliver De Groote, and others. The orchestras include the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra and the CAPAB Orchestra.

The full archive of GSE is in the music archive library of the University of Stellenbosch for those who might want to look deeper into the history of Cape Town classical music recordings.

After considerable administrative delays, this re-release in digital form has been arranged by Mountain Records to be distributed by the parent company Lee Thorp Entertainment.  Mountain Records and Donald Graham  collaborated on the release of several albums by the Langa marimba band Amampondo. Graham recorded the band live a number of times.

Donald Graham was also an audio electronics enthusiast and developed his own range of custom built sound speakers. Notably he marketed a model which was a folded horn design, enhancing the sound through separating the bass frequencies to the bottom of the rather large wood constructed stack and the higher frequencies from a speaker facing forward on the top of the stack. Later his son Andrew continued the manufacture of the model (as an extended hobby) for a few years.

"We are issuing these archive recordings under the title Beautiful Cape Town, to remember both Donald as well as some of the outstanding classical music talent from Cape Town at the end of the last century." - Patrick Lee-Thorp for Mountain Records.

The release date for this digital release is - 10/4/2026

Music link >  (After release)

 

Lee Thorp Entertainment, Hamburg

 

 Links to other GSE releases > 

https://open.spotify.com/album/7cnJWznveLwxh9cbdP1ARd?si=6qtEkTHuRVSEcDLt4T0TmQ

https://open.spotify.com/album/1JV9RG2LUE3OIt3Fy4Uy7K?si=vZ-ytx55QomftsaZEgQx0g 













 

 

 

 

 

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