US Music

fjd@sun.ac.za

Féroll-Jon Davids is currently the principal clarinettist of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO). He holds a Masters Degree in Clarinet Performance (cum laude) from Stellenbosch University and has studied under the tutelage of two former CPO principal clarinettists, Daniel Prozesky and Maria du Toit. During his music studies, Féroll-Jon attended two semester exchanges in the USA at two different institutions, the University of Georgia (2018) in Athens, Georgia, and Montana State University (2020) in Bozeman, Montana. He has received masterclasses from Julliard professor, Jon Mannasse (USA), Killian Herold (Germany), Harri Mäkki (Finland), László Kuti (Germany), and Rupert Fankhauser (Austria).

Féroll-Jon has been the recipient of numerous awards, highlights of which include: first prize at the Mabel Quick International Scholarship Competition (2017); third prize at the Unisa Scholarship competition (2017); finalist at the ATKV Muziq Competition (2016); and category prizes at the South African National Youth Music Competition (2015). He has also performed as a soloist in youth concerto festivals across South Africa, including performances with the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra (2015), Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (2016) and the Stellenbosch University Symphony Orchestra (2015, 2017, 2019).

In 2017, Féroll-Jon was a participant in Disa, a newly established chamber music programme hosted in South Africa by Decoda, a group of chamber musicians affiliated to Carnegie Hall in New York. During 2019 in Payerbach, Austria at the International Summer Academy (isa19), hosted by the University of Performing Arts in Vienna, the wind quintet, of which he was a member, won the prize for the best interpretation of a composition by the Czech composer Antonín Reicha.

Originally from Wellington, Petrus Coetzee started music lessons in violin and piano at a young age. He completed his Bachelor’s degree in violin under Louis van der Watt and his Master’s degree in Chamber Music under Suzanne Martens, both at Stellenbosch University. Thereafter, he left South Africa to complete a Masters’ Diploma in viola under Prof Klaus Christa at the Vorarlberger Landeskonservatorium in Austria and then an MMus in Viola under Prof Volker Jacobsen and String Quartet under Prof Oliver Wille at the Hochschule für Musik Theater und Medien in Hannover, Germany.

Petrus’s career in Germany has allowed him to broaden his musical horizons and gain a wide range of experiences. In Hanover, he cultivated his love of chamber music by founding the Daphnis String Quartet with three fellow students. The quartet performed at several festivals in Germany, including the Heidelberger Frühling and the Quartettaffairs in Frankfurt, and later competed in the semi-final round of the August Everding String Quartet Competition. Petrus considers the quartet’s invitational performance of Helmut

Lachenmann’s Second String Quartet, at the composer’s 80th birthday concert in 2015, to be a highlight in his career, sharing the stage with the renowned Arditti Quartet. While in Hanover, he completed a two-year orchestral internship at the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover and became a founding member of the young innovative Ensemble Reflektor, based in Hamburg. He expanded his musical reach into the operatic repertoire while working permanently as Tutti Violist for the Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester from 2015 to 2017. Other ensembles that he has been working with, include the Bremer Philharmoniker, the Osnabrücker Symphonieorchester, the Philhramonisches Orchester Bremerhaven and the Orchester Im Treppenhaus.

After eight years abroad, Petrus returned to South Africa in 2018 to take up the position of Principal Violist of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. Besides his work with the orchestra, he is also a member of several other ensembles, such as the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra, the Trio Pastel, and the Fynbos Ensemble. He currently teaches violin and viola on a part-time basis at the German International School in Cape Town.

Hanneke Zwamborn (Basson) completed her degrees, BMus, BMus Honours and MMus (Performance), all cum laude, at the University of Stellenbosch as a student of the late Juliana de Villiers. She was awarded several bursaries and prizes for academic study as well as for piano playing, including the Mabel Quick undergraduate prize, the Mabel Quick Overseas Bursary and the Conserve Stipendium for best student. In 1994 she completed the UNISA Performer’s Licentiate (cum laude) and won the piano section of the ATKV Forte Competition. She has played with major orchestras such as the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra, CAPAB and the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra. After advanced studies in the Netherlands with Jan Wijn at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam, she returned to teach music and piano at Stellenbosch High School, where she is also the head of Culture.  Hanneke is a freelance accompanist and performs regularly in chamber music.

David Wolfswinkel completed his studies in conducting and repertoire studies cum laude at Stellenbosch University, and is currently a lecturer at the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch in the subjects Choral Conducting and Aural Training.  He is the resident conductor of Koorinsident and has conducted ensembles such as the Camerata Academia Freiburg, German-based Ensemble AmaCantus, SU Camerata, and Schola Cantorum; received masterclasses from Bradley Allred, Cecilia Martin-Löf, and Victor Yampolsky; and toured locally and abroad with engagements in The Netherlands, Lithuania, Germany, Barcelona, Hungary, and Hong Kong.  David has also composed, arranged, musical directed, and collaborated on numerous theatrical productions, including orphea (2021), tot stof | tot stilte (2018), 4.48 Psychosis (2019), Donkievel (2019), and Koniging Lear (2019).  Beyond working as a conductor David is a sought-after music copyist and engraver – recently involved in the preparation of new commissions and critical editions of works by Philip Miller, Roelof Temmingh, Arnold van Wyk, and Winfried Lüdemann.

Elsabé Richter bears an MMus degree in Vocal Performance from the North-West University, where she studied under baritone Werner Nel. During her studies she was awarded numerous prizes and bursaries, most notably a Norwegian scholarship for a year’s academic study at the Norwegian Academy of Music during her master’s degree. Here she studied under the guidance of Svein Bjørkøy, Håkan Hagegård and Mona Julsrud. She has received masterclasses from various singers and musicians including Kobie van Rensburg, Marcel Beekman, Maarten Koningsberger, Albie and Hanna van Schalkwyk, Mimi Coertse, Erica Eloff, Eric Müller, Patricia Misslin, Paul Kiesgen and Lawrence Zazzo.

Her repertoire encompasses a wide range of early music, art songs and opera as well as oratorio and other sacred works. Prominent operatic roles include Susanna (in Mozart’s ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’); Galatea (in Handel’s ‘Acis and Galatea’), as well as Belinda in Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’. She also performed in the South-African production, ‘Lamento’ – a pastiche Monteverdi opera arranged by Kobie van Rensburg, featured on the January 2017 Front page of Opern Welt Magazine and nominated for the 2017 YAMawards. Her sacred repertoire includes Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria, J.S. Bach’s Passions and Motets, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Keiser’s St. Mark’s Passion, Charpentier’s Te Deum, Haydn’s Little Organ Mass, as well as Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate, Regina Coeli (K127) and several of his masses. In 2021, Elsabé performed as soloist with Cape Town Opera and the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra in a filmed production of Monteverdi’s ‘Vespro della Beata Vergine’, broadcast on KykNET and DStv.

Elsabé was nominated for a 2017 kykNET Fiësta Award together with the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra for their Art Festival programme titled ‘Handel in die Voorkamer’, as well as for a 2017 WOORDtroFEE as part of the Cape Town Camerata’s production ‘Boerneef sing Palissandertaal’. At 2015’s kykNET Fiësta awards, ‘Bloed en Rose: Die Lied van Jeanne en Gilles’ was crowned the best South African theatre production of that year. Elsabé formed part of the SU Vocal Ensemble that featured throughout this theatre production. For artistic excellence, the SU Vocal Ensemble received a nomination for a special award, ‘Die Blou Stoel’.

Elsabé regularly performs with various ensembles, choirs and orchestras.

Sipho Fubesi hails from the east part of the country, in a small town called Centane. He made his Royal Opera House/Covent Garden debut in 2013 as Third Esquire (Parsifal). Previous performances at the Royal Opera House include the world premiere of O’Regan’s Heart of Darkness with Opera East and ROH2 in the Linbury Studio Theatre. He also covered the role of Hassan in Weir’s Miss Fortune on the main stage.

Fubesi studied music at the University of Cape Town under Prof Angelo Gobbato and Sarita Stern. In 2008 he moved to the UK to study at the Royal Northern College of Music, one of the best conservatoires in the world. In 2013 he covered the role of Fenton (Falstaff) for the Glyndebourne Festival and in 2012 Machado (Philips’s The Yellow Sofa) for Glyndebourne on Tour.

In January 2019, he performed in New Year’s Concert and Starlight Concert with Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Maestro Richard Cock and toured United Kingdom with Cape Town Opera.

Sipho is a founder of Mzansi Ten Tenors and a part-time singing lecturer for both University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University.

Annelize de Villiers graduated from the University of Cape Town with a BMusHons distinction under the tuition of Becky Steltzner. In 2013 she obtained her Master of Arts in Music Performance from the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne in Switzerland where she studied with the renowned Swiss clarinettist Frédéric Rapin. She also qualified in bass clarinet and historical clarinet under Antoine Marguier and Cindy Lin respectively.

Annelize was co-principal and e-flat clarinetist of the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra in Durban from 2014-2017, and sub-principal clarinettist of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra from 2017-2020. She has been a member of the Intonga Reed Quintet since 2019. Annelize teaches clarinet at Rustenburg Girls’ High School and Wynberg Boys’ Junior School, and lectures at the University of Cape Town.