Red Bull Symphonic 2026: Raising the bar again

Red Bull Symphonic 2026 has come and gone - and what a weekend it was.

This year’s show brought Sun-El Musician, Dlala Thukzin and Maestro Chad Hendricks together with a full symphonic orchestra and choir, at a new outdoor venue at Montecasino, in front of more than 5,000 people a night. It was also broadcast on SABC 1, taking the experience far beyond the venue and into homes across the country.

For us, that matters a lot.

There’s something powerful about knowing that a child watching on television somewhere in South Africa may have seen an orchestra presented in a completely different way - bold, contemporary, South African, and just fully alive.

From Howard Audio’s side, our role was at the centre of the musical process - handling the musical elements of the show, including the arrangements, creative overview, orchestra, audio timeline and rehearsals. This year also marked a special shift for Adam, who stepped in as co-director, working closely with Thlonofatso Mokoena and the Red Bull Culture team, as well as Jonathan Bandli and the Bad Weather crew.

The aim from the beginning was clear: make the show bigger, but make sure the detail grew with it.

A major part of this year’s work was rethinking the orchestra as something fully inside the world of Afro House, 3-Step, Sun-El Musician and Dlala Thukzin.

That shaped everything: the 18 original orchestral arrangements, the choir, the musicians, the staging, and the way the music moved through the show.

Huge credit to our arrangers - Benjamin Jephta, Bez Roberts, Joseph Arthur, David Cousins and Chad Hendricks - for reimagining the songs with such care, and to the orchestra and choir for bringing that work to life at an extraordinary level.

Rorisang Sechele led the choir beautifully, and Chad Hendricks brought clarity and leadership as Maestro.

A sincere thank you to the Red Bull team, the artists, the technical crew, the broadcast team, Bad Weather, Nathan Ihlenfeldt, Joshua Deetlefs, Rudi Van Dyk, Andy Roberts, the wider Howard Events team, and Belinda Howard, whose leadership across the process was central to making it all come together.

Every year, the challenge is to raise the bar while keeping the heart of the show intact. This year felt like a huge step forward: 2 huge nights, a national broadcast, thousands of people in an outdoor venue - and South African music at the centre.

For us at Howard Audio and Howard Events, this is exactly the kind of work we love - ambitious, collaborative, music-led, and built with care.

The bar has been set very high. Exactly where we like it.

- The Howard Audio Team