My first teacher Mrs Aimee Rossler was absolutely brilliant, she taught me an appreciation for classical music. I believe with my whole heart that if it wasn’t for her I would not have continued with music for this long. One day I was sitting in her classroom having a lesson when she handed me an entry form and said: “You should enter this festival …” I looked at it and thought that this could be fun. The Stellenbosch Chamber Music Festival was a 10 day orchestra and chamber music course with lots of young people taking part. To my amazement I was chosen to be in one of the orchestras and learnt how to play in an orchestra. In my mind it was magical how all the people in the group where my age, all playing different instruments and how we all came together to make beautiful sounds that became beautiful music.
Since that moment, our first rehearsal together, I wanted to be an orchestra musician and not just a solo performer. The next year I started High School and did an audition for the Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre and joined their Junior Windband and a year later advanced to the Intermediate Windband. Disaster strucked when my music teacher immigrated to Australia to get married. What was I going to do? As you all know the earth didn’t stop spinning and I started taking music lessons with Mrs Bridget Rennie Salonen at the Beau Soleil Music Centre. This was wonderful because I joined the Senior Windband and there where so many other high school students who also loved classical music and I instantly made lifelong friends. The standard of the music centre and my teacher were very high. I actually had to practise every day and not just get away with practising the day before my lesson.
A few months later I heard Cape Town had a youth orchestra. I love orchestras so I got an audition but the only problem was that it was four days away. A very short time to prepare a piece. I was very nervous. I stood in a small dull room with the professional flautist and did my audition. I didn’t get into the youth orchestra which only had two flautists but I did become the principal flautist for the Windband. This was absolutely wonderful because it taught me how to lead and not just follow. An experience I had never had before. At the next years audition I was advanced into the youth orchestra as well. I played for the Cape Town Youth Orchestra and the Cape Town Youth Wind Ensemble for two years and met wonderful musicians and learnt a lot from my conductors.
In South Africa there are two other “major” orchestra courses called SANYO (South African National Youth Orchestra Foundation ) and MIAGI ( Music is a great Investment ) I remember getting to Johannesburg at the SANYO course in 2008 I was chosen to play in the National Windband with Laszlo Marosi as my conductor. If I was asked out of all the conductors which one I was mentored by the most I would have to say Hungarian born Laszlo Marosi. The whole course lasted about twelve days. We would practise and then have concerts at the end of the course. Mr Marosi didn’t repeat things a million times. His whole approach was to explain and make a mental picture for us about what the music was about and then made us play it for the first time. I remember thinking how I especially forget that music is still music and not just notes that have to be played correctly. The Windband played the piece very well for a first read after Mr Marosi explained to us what we actually were playing. Our concert was a grand success. I was lucky enough to be in his Windband the following year as well and absorb everything he said. I will never forget what he told us: “Don’t put things in boxes, everything is related to everything.”
One of my biggest breaks came when MIAGI contacted my teacher asking for two replacements for their orchestra and naturally she gave MIAGI two of her students. I got the chance to be conducted and mentored by Maxim Vengerov. I remember the news and first turning cold because the concert was only a few days away and I was also busy with my high school exams. Me and my friend (the other flautist) where both sitting in the rehearsal space practising and going through our trigonometry. Thank goodness music and mathematics has such a close connection.
Later in 2008 I was chosen to be part of a conducting course with CPO (Cape Philharmonic Orchestra) and a Professor in Music Performance, Conducting and Ensemble Maestro Victor Yampolsky. He taught me the basics but before I could continue, the course lacked funding. It was very sad because I was extremely interested in conducting. I do believe that the world is my oyster and that I can always pick it up again. I would like to be a conductor one day as well as a flautist.
At the end of high school my mother and grandmother gave me a ticket to go to Holland and looked at universities. I found a course that combined business with music, I always wanted to study business and never knew how to combine the two. This was it! Media and Entertainment Management was perfect. So I went to the university and was immediately excited. After my time spent in Holland I decided to take a gap year to complete my ABRSM Performance Diploma in Flute. At the beginning of 2009 I started to take lessons with Gabriele von Dürckheim who is the principal flautist for CPO and who studied with world known flautist Trevor Wye. She taught me a combination of the French and English schools.
The whole year was spent going through French repertoire, and auditioning for music festivals, concerts and ultimately working on my Performance Diploma which I will perform in May or June 2010. One of the auditions I did was for the Youth Music Festival. The Youth Music Festival is a gala concert where young musicians get the chance to perform a concerto with a professional orchestra. Me and my teacher‘s other student decided to audition and see what would happen. We prepared the Cimarosa Double flute concerto. We did the audition and got a spot for the gala concert. I was extremely excited because this would be my first performance as a soloist with an orchestra. The concert was perfect considering: “What is more out of tune than a flute? Two flutes.” We had to work really hard to follow each other, but I can definitely say that: That concert, standing in front of seven hundred people has been my highlight so far.
In the near future I would like to start university in Haarlem, Holland. Speak Dutch fluently {“Weet je wel”} and make many new friends. Since I am going to study business and music combined for the next four years I’ll also try and join an ensemble and find a new music teacher as well as looking for internships at any company as broad as oil companies, event companies and maybe even The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Eventually I would also like to complete my FRSM (Fellowship of the Royal Schools of Music ) as well as start working in the business and music world. Ideally after university I would stay in Europe for 5 more years and get the experience and then come back to South Africa. I believe there are endless possibilities in the undiscovered waters (media, business and music) and I plan to discover the new world!
