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Nerina von Mayer was born in Johannesburg. She studied in Cape Town, Vienna and London and holds a BMus and MMus in Flute Performance. She won the Jules Kramer Award for Best Woodwind Player. Alternate Principal Flute in the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra and CTPO for 16 years, she has performed as soloist with the CTSO, CTPO and CAPAB orchestras and also for the prestigious Cape Town Concert Club. She has recorded for the SABC and is a well-known recitalist and chamber musician. After heading the Flute Department at UCT’s College of Music for many years, she now acts as the External Examiner for Woodwinds at UCT, also examines for Stellenbosch University and is frequently asked to adjudicate music competitions and Eisteddfods. She pursues a busy and varied freelance career, teaching, concertizing and performing on a freelance basis with the CPO and the Cape Town Pops Orchestra. She is a member of the well-known Hungarian Trio, one of Cape Town’s most sought-after ensembles.

Merlin Julie is a piano, organ and woodwind specialist with a focus in the Classical and Jazz genres and directs school, church and male choirs. Other ensembles currently under his leadership include the Steenberg Community Big Band, “Just Friends”, a Saxophone Quintet, and a Christmas Band. He has been a clinician for symphonic wind bands, clarinet ensembles, saxophone ensembles, big bands as well as the music director for numerous musical productions, nationally and abroad. In addition to this he has close to four decades of class teaching experience, being responsible for teaching subject music and instrumental music for Grades 8-12.

Julie holds a Master of Music from Wayne State University, and Master of Arts degrees from Detroit and New York University.  His vocational qualifications include a BMus degree in Education, coupled with a Teacher’s Licentiate (School Music Diploma) from Rhodes University; RULS – School Music; BMus – Music Education; MMus – Music Education (Curriculum Development) ; MA – Music Therapy.

Julie is currently the Music Director of the Steenberg High School Wind Band Programme and directs the class recorder programme at Floreat and Steenberg Primary Schools. Is a part-time lecturer at Stellenbosch University in the Certificate Programme – responsibilities include the facilitation of a Satellite Campus at Steenberg High School.

Wesley de Villiers started playing the recorder at age 6 in the church orchestra and at age 10, started learning the organ and piano. He attended Wynberg High where he took music as a subject. In 2012, he enrolled as a student of the Certificate Programme, where he was recipient of the Karin Maritz Music Award. In 2014, he attended the satellite campus at the Youngsfield Army base, where he studied music theory under Cheryl George and continued horn studies with Sean Kierman, completing his Grade 7 Unisa theory exam and Grade 8 Horn exam with merit.

He has been an active player in a number of ensembles including the South African National Youth Wind and Symphonic Orchestras, South African National Defence Force Army Band, Stellenbosch University Medical Orchestra, UWC Wind Orchestra, UWC Brass Quintet and the Cape Town Orchestra.

In 2015 he started tutoring some of the students enrolled in the Certificate Programme and later took over the beginner theory classes from Cheryl George. Since 2019 he has been appointed as lecturer in Music Theory, History and Analysis. During the time teaching and tutoring in the programme he obtained a Diploma in Music Theory, Diploma in Music Performance (ATCL), Diploma in Music Performance (DipAbrsm) and Licentiate in Music Performance (LTCL).

Karin Cronje is an award-winning novelist who has published several novels, short stories, and a memoir. She graduated from Pretoria University in 1979 (BA Drama) and began a career in journalism, working at various newspapers and magazines, initially full time and later as a freelance writer. She has researched and written for, among others, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and the Sunday Independent. She has dubbed programmes for the SABC, performed in radio dramas and acted for Artscape. She also furthered her studies in psychology and qualified as a life skills coach.

Karin worked in the publishing industry for many years as a marketing manager and publicist. She was fortunate enough to work with and promote many leading academics, politicians and authors, including Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer and authors Wally Serote and Mandla Langa; former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town Mamphela Ramphele; Member of Parliament Jeremy Cronin; former Minister of Education Kader Asmal; and cartoonist, Zapiro.

In 2006, she left South Africa to teach creative writing and English in South Korea, first at a private school and later at Suncheon National University, in Suncheon. Karin returned in 2008 the year in which her novel Alles mooi weer was published, and for which she received the Jan Rabie/Rapport prize.

She joined the University of Stellenbosch Certificate Programme at the satellite campus at the Army Base in Youngsfield, Wynberg, in 2010. Her duties include teaching Academic Literacy and English to students enrolled in university courses. She also teaches research methodology and writing, as well as performance, communication, and life skills for the Bandmasters course.

Lisa-Mari Janse van Rensburg grew up in Kuilsriver and Stellenbosch. She has been involved with music from a young age, one of the highlights of her early musical involvement being the opportunity to have been part of the Tygerberg Children’s Choir. During this time and onwards, she directed her musical interests towards violin.

During her BMus, she studied violin with Louis van der Watt at Stellenbosch University. During her student years, she participated in a wide range of orchestral, ensemble and solo performances, including performances with the Stellenbosch University Camerata. She received violin masterclasses with Louise Lansdown, and Baroque violin with Pauline Nobes. She graduated her BMus in 2014 with Music Education as major, and violin as her chosen instrument. In the same year, she passed the UNISA performer’s level assessment in violin with distinction. After completion of her BMus, she continued violin lessons with Suzanne Martens for another year. She received her MMus (Music Education) in 2017, under Danell Müller (née Herbst).

She participates in freelance orchestral/ensemble performances, which includes regular performances as ad hoc tutti violin player with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra. She also performs regularly with the Stellenbosch University Medical Orchestra. In 2018, she was concert master for a performance with the Enlighten Symphony Orchestra. She is currently a full time violin teacher at Beau Soleil Music Centre, where she started in 2019.

Allan Stephenson was born in Wallasey, Cheshire in England and studied piano from the age of seven and the ‘cello at thirteen. He entered the Royal Manchester College of Music in 1968 and left with an A.R.M.C.M in 1972.

He came to South Africa in 1973 as sub-principal ‘cellist with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra, a position he held until the demise of the orchestra.

Stephenson’s debut with the CTSO saw the first performance of his 1^st Symphony, a work begun on the pier at Llandudno, Wales, and completed in Cape Town. Since then he has conducted all the major symphony orchestras in South Africa in concert and ballet performances. Stephenson’s repertoire is large and wide-ranging, incorporating orchestral and choral music and he has been responsible for a number of first performances in the country from Nielsen’s Inextinguishable to P D Q Bach’s 1712 Overture. With his Concertino Pastorale for Clarinet he produced the first serious music CD to be made in South Africa and has recorded many works by South African composers Zaidal-Rudolph’s At the End  of the Rainbow Klatzow’s States of light and his Brahm’s transcription of the string quintet in G major, Thomas Rajna’s  2^nd Piano Concerto and Harp concerto, to name a few. From 1978-1988 he was the music director of the UCT SA College of Music Orchestra and founded the Cape Town Chamber Orchestra and Musicanti ( a String Chamber Orchestra) for a number of seasons.

Stephenson’s catalogue of works now numbers over a hundred compositions in all genres from orchestral to chamber, three operas, (including The Orphans of Qumbu – which has seen some 3,000 orphans of all races taking part), the opera who-dunnit Who killed Jimmy Valentine and last year the musical Wonderfully Wicked and concerti for almost every orchestral instrument.

As well as the concert platform, in indoor and outdoor venues, Stephenson can be found in the orchestra pit conducted his own ballet/ballet arrangements, (Tales of Hoffman, Camille and Sylvia in Hollywood – all to choreography by Veronica Paeper) or others (Raymonda, Don Quixote, Merry Widow). He conducted the SABC’s very successful first season of performances of Romeo and Juliet with a live orchestra at the Civic Theatre, Johannesburg. He has worked with many overseas soloists including Boris Belkin, Jean Volondat, Karine Georgian as well as local artists Thomas Rajna, Oliver de Groote, Peter Jacobs, Aviva Pelham, Hanli Stapela, Hugh Masekela to name a few.

Mariechen Meyer believes the double bass or any form of bass to be an essential ingredient to music – music being an essential ingredient to life.  For that very reason she is an expert in her field and an active promoter of the double bass and music education in general.  Ever since she started playing the double bass Mariechen has been fascinated by the role of the double bass as a solo and chamber instrument. This fascination has led to numerous local and international music experiences such as being member of the Bassinova Quartet (USA)and iPalpiti Artists International (USA), competing in international competitions, attending masterclasses and workshops  in the United States and Europe and performing as soloist with the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra (2013), Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (2008) and Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra (2004).  Mariechen started her studies with Peter Guy in Bloemfontein from the age of 10 that was followed by her undergraduate studies with Roxane Steffen at the University of Stellenbosch and graduate studies with Jeff Bradetich at the University of North Texas. After completing her final doctorate degree in musical arts at UNT with Bradetich, Mariechen moved back to South Africa and is currently working as a freelance performer, private double bass teacher and part-time lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch excited to share her knowledge, to continuously keep learning, do research and help promote the versatility of the double bass, the importance of music education and classical music in our community.

Stephanie Vos is a Lecturer in Musicology at Stellenbosch University. Her research engages with contemporary South African jazz practices as well as music under apartheid from multiple perspectives. In her doctoral research (Royal Holloway, University of London), she wrote about exile as theory, discourse and lived experience in South African jazz of the 1960s, with a particular focus on the music of Abdullah Ibrahim. More recently, the book Sulke Vriende is Skaars: Die briewe van Anton Hartman en Arnold van Wyk, 1947-1982 (Protea 2020, co-edited with Stephanus Muller) published the annotated correspondence between the erstwhile Head of Music at the South African Broadcasting Corporation, Anton Hartman, and the composer Arnold van Wyk. The book offers a window into the unfolding and cultural aspirations and praxis of the (white) Western art music scene during apartheid’s heyday through the lens of two prominent protagonists. Sulke Vriende was awarded the KykNet Rapport Prize for Non-Fiction, as well as the ATKV Woordveertjie for Non-Fiction.

Stephanie’s more recent research interests in the contemporary South African jazz landscape started when she curated the ifPOP Jazz Conversations series (https://aoinstitute.ac.za/ifpop/conversation/) during her postdoctoral fellowship at Africa Open Institute for Music, Research and Innovation (Stellenbosch University), funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This is the direction she is currently focussing on in her writing and research.

Stephanie’s writing has been published in the South African Journal of Music Research (SAMUS), herri online journal (www.herri.org), Playing for Keeps: Improvisation in the Aftermath (Duke University Press, eds. Daniel Fischlin and Eric Porter) and The Conversation Africa.

ResearchGate profile address: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephanie-Vos-5

Stephanus Muller is Professor of Music and Director of Africa Open, Institute for Music, Research and Innovation (AOI) (https://aoinstitute.ac.za/), which functions autonomously from the Music Department in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. He has worked and published on South African composers, and at AOI he supervises postgraduate students working on academic topics, performance-based studies and composition. He is the co-editor of South African Music Studies (SAMUS) (https://www.sasrim.ac.za/samus/), and the publisher of herri (https://herri.org.za). For more information about his research and publications, see https://aoinstitute.ac.za/fellow_core_team/stephanus-muller/ and  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanus_Muller

Pianist and composer Ramon Alexander is considered a leading exponent of Cape Jazz. He studied jazz piano under Merton Barrow at The Jazz Workshop in Cape Town after he finished high school. He however graduated with a B.Sc.Agric) from Stellenbosch University in 2004 in viticulture and oenology.

Since he was selected as pianist for the Standard Bank National Youth Big Band in 2004, Alexander worked with a variety of artists such as Robbie Jansen, Errol Dyers, McCoy Mrubata, Mark Hauser, Tuur Forizone , Frank Paco’s Art Ensemble, Japanese trumpet legend, Terumasa Hino and The Cape Jazz Band, led by veteran drummer Jack Momple.

His ensemble has performed at numerous local and international music festivals, notably the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, Borneo International Jazz Festival, The Darling Music Experience as well a residency at No Black Tie Jazz Clubin Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 2019.

Alexander has two albums to his credit. (Picnic at Kontiki [2011] and Echoes from Louwskloof [2015] ). In 2018 Cape Jazz Pianowas released by Mountain Records. He’s also produced numerous recording projects across various genres, most notably Essence of Spring [2018] by Cape Town jazz icon Ibrahim Khalil Shihab.

He also regularly conducts jazz ensemble workshops youth bands in the Western Cape.