Concert

Concert

The English term concert has a number of uses in South Africa. The equivalent Afrikaans term, konsert it used pretty much in the same fashion (see below).

Among the uses are:

(1) The musical use, to refer to any a live musical performance in front of an audience (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert)

(2) The expanded use, where performers mount elaborate events, including theatrical elements such as lighting

(3) A more theatrical term referring to an evening's entertainment made up of poetry, drama and musical items - particularly in amateur and educational contexts (e.g. a "school concert").

(4) Finally the term is also used derogatively on occasion to refer to a bad or inferior musical or theatrical presentation.

Konsert

Literally Afrikaans for a concert, in the sense of a musical presentation, and used in that way. However, the term also gained another and explicit meaning in Afrikaans towards the end of the 19th century, when it was used to refer to a mixed evening of entertainment (see also Entertainments). That sense of it is still very active in the language (though a little ironically so) and has since transferred to South African English as well - e.g the school concert refers not to a musical evening only, but often includes a play. *** Robert Mohr's amusing farces Ons Hou Konsert (196*) and Ons Hou Konsert 2 (198*) (based on short plays by Melt Brink) actually offer a wonderful (even if a little satirical) example of such an entertainment.

is formally used to refer to a musical concert (as in English), but is more widely used in an informal and extended sense, to refer to any type of performance held in a town - perhaps as an equivalent of a variety show. In this sense it may even refer to a performance of a play, although mostly of an amateur nature. The latter use of the term may be done seriously, or often applied cynically or satirically to typify a bad production ("the production was nothing more than a concert"). This Afrikaans use of the term has become part of South African English as well.

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