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Xander Kritzinger is a choral conductor, tenor, vocal pedagogue and composer of predominantly vocal music, who began his music career as a member of the Drakensberg Boys Choir. It is here where he was appointed as student conductor and voice teacher. Xander then enrolled at Stellenbosch University where he completed  his undergraduate, Honours and Master degrees. During his undergraduate years he won both the Mabel Quick and Hartman singing bursaries. His Master’s degree discusses singing performance, with a focus on research into training the changing or mutating voice.

From 2008 to 2022, Xander has been the full-time choral conductor at Stellenbosch High School.

Since 2014 Xander has served as conductor of the Viva Cantare community choir from Stellenbosch and in 2019 he established the Stellies Children’s Choir, a community choir for primary school learners from the greater Stellenbosch area.

Currently Xander is also a part-time voice lecturer at the Music Department of  Stellenbosch University and is the managing director and founder of the Cape Choral Academy which will start in 2023.

As a tenor Xander specialises in early music and has performed with professional vocal ensembles like the Cape Consort and Cape Town Soloist Choir. He has performed as soloist in major works like Bach’s Ascension Oratorio, Handel’s Utrecht Jubilate and other oratorios. He has also played the role of ‘Gerrardo’ in Pucini’s opera ‘Gianni Schicchi’.

Janel Speelman is a rising South African soprano, who is quickly establishing herself as an emerging artist in opera, concert and art song. Recent performances include the Concert of Hope as part of the Suidoosterfees, as well as Niel Rademan’s acclaimed South African Sopranos performance of Heldinne as part of the Woordfees. Ms Speelman is a graduate of UCT, where she attained her bachelor of music degree, an honors in western classical vocal performance and a postgraduate diploma in opera under the direction of Prof Virginia Davids and, Prof Kamal Khan. She then completed a master of music degree under Prof Daniel Washington at the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theatre and Dance. Ms Speelman was invited to sing at the School of Music Theatre and Dance annual prestigious performance at the Kennedy Centre as part of a select group representing the school. During her study; she was awarded the Andrea Person Vocal Award and the George Shirley Scholarship.

Dr Bridget Rennie-Salonen (PhD, PGDip, LRSM, BA, LBME)

An award-winning flautist and academic, with extensive and diverse music education experience, Dr Bridget Rennie-Salonen (PhD) is a sought-after pedagogue, performer, and researcher. At the SU Music Department, she lectures in flute, woodwind teaching methods, repertoire and orchestral studies, and Baroque traverso; supervises postgraduate research and directs the woodwind ensemble. Many of her former students have excelled locally and abroad, now occupying key performance, entrepreneurial, and educational positions in the South African (SA) music sector.

Bridget has appeared as soloist with several SA orchestras. As the Solo Principal Flute of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra for many years, she was the recipient of the prestigious Carklin Award for Artistic Excellence. Recent awards include Fiesta, Silver Ovation, Fanie Beetge Academic Prize, Oppenheimer Memorial Trust, and SU Top-20 Postdoc awards. As a freelancer, Bridget is the principal flute of the Cape Town Festival Orchestra, guest principal with the Free State Symphony Orchestra, and Baroque traverso flautist with Cape Town Baroque.

Her internationally-connected interdisciplinary research in performing arts health is ground-breaking for SA. Interested in integrating optimal artistic performance with wellbeing and health promotion, her research includes musicians’ health education and health literacy; somatic learning; sensorimotor retraining; and music and performance psychology. Bridget holds certificates in the Essentials of Performing Arts Medicine and Functional Movement Anatomy; is Licensed Body Mapping Educator and Training Mentor; is core researcher on the international Musicians’ Health Literacy Consortium; is commissioner on the International Society for Music Education’s Instrumental and Vocal Teaching Commission; serves on the Performing Arts Medicine Association’s Long Range Planning Committee, and is president of the SA Performing Arts Health Association. She is also an experienced external examiner, adjudicator, and peer-reviewer. Bridget is an artist who is passionate about both the meaning of the performing arts in society and the meaning of the performing arts for the artists themselves.

https://www.bridgetrs.com

martensp@sun.ac.za

Peter Martens Is currently principal cellist with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and Director of the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival.

Of his recently released CD of concertos by Saint-Saëns and Vieuxtemps with Bernhard Gueller and the CPO, Any Wilding writes, “Martens’ cello is one of the most beautiful sounds – a deep rich harmonic wooden stringed singing being. His playing is superb, compassionate elegant phrasing, and flawless technique. His bow knows the exact line between the tender softness and the hard edge, and this extra dimension is masterfully applied to his dynamics. He expresses a full range of emotion, from angst and agitation to acceptance and wisdom”.

Peter holds a PhD from Stellenbosch University where he studied in his formative years with Dalena Roux before studying with Heidi Litschauer at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. After his return to South Africa, he also obtained a Master’s Degree from UCT.

He is a member of the Amici String Quartet, has enjoyed chamber music partnerships with amongst others, Leon Bosch (double bass), David Juritz , Benjamin Schmid, Sergei Malov and Suzanne Martens (violin) and Leslie Howard (piano), as well as having performed with the Brodsky String Quartet in London. With the Stellenbosch University Camerata in which he served as Artistic Director and principal cellist, Peter has also performed with Joshua Bell and Pinchas Zukerman. Concerto engagements have resulted in collaborations with a number of fine conductors including Victor Yampolsky, Bernard Gueller, Douglas Boyd, Wolfram Christ, Nicholas Cleobury and Jonas Alber. He has participated in festivals in Russia, Holland, Salzburg, Ireland, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Portugal as well has having performed in France, the U.K. and U.S.A. Many South African composers have written for him, the most notable composition being the Cello Concerto by Allan Stephenson, which he recorded for Meridian Records with the Cape Town Philharmonic. He has recorded the Beethoven Cello Sonatas with Luis Magalhäes and the Bach Cello Suites for TwoPianists Records.

He is married with two children to violinist, Suzanne Martens.

josedias351@gmail.com

Portuguese-born José Dias is a regular presence in all major concert halls and Arts Festivals in South Africa. In recent seasons, international performances have taken him to Portugal, Mozambique, Israel, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, including extensive tours of the Netherlands and Germany, with repeated appearances in such historic halls as the Berliner Philharmonie, Münchner Philharmonie, Beethovenhalle in Bonn, Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, among many others.

José is in high demand as soloist, chamber musician and vocal accompanist and coach, and has also been the musical director of Cape Town Opera’s internationally acclaimed touring productions African Angels and African Passion, as well as Biblioteek Productions’ operatic productions such as Poskantoor, La Voix Humaine and The Recycled Magic Flute. Recently he also wrote new music and took the musical direction of Piekniek by Mpande, a modern day reimagining of the seminal Afrikaans protest cabaret Piekniek by Dingaan as well as the 2019 Fleur du Cap Awards Ceremony, at the Artscape Opera House. These productions and his involvement therein, have made him the recipient of several awards, from festivals such as Woordfees, KKNK, Aardklop, as well as Fiësta and Fleur du Cap Awards.

He was co-creator and curator of the RISE concert series in collaboration with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra – a platform for the display of young SA classical talent – and is also an avid supporter of contemporary music, having premiered several works by composers such as Hendrik Hofmeyr, Alexander Johnson and Conrad Asman. Many of these (some written especially for him) have been recorded and are available on CD.

mioanna506@gmail.com

Ioanna Matei is a part-time oboe lecturer at the Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town’s College of Music and at the Beau Soleil Music Centre in Kenilworth.

She was born in Romania. At the age of fourteen she entered the Bucharest High School of Music where she studied oboe with the legendary Pavel Tornea, and in 1972 she matriculated with Distinction with a Baccalaureate Diploma, majoring in oboe.

After passing the entrance examination, she studied oboe with Radu Chisu (international prize-winning oboe-player) at the Bucharest Conservatoire of Music, obtaining with Distinction her Master’s Degree in oboe performance. During her studies, Ioanna was very involved in different chamber music groups and she also played in the Bucharest Conservatory Symphony Orchestra.

After her graduation she was appointed oboe teacher at the Bucharest School of Music and she also played as a permanent extra with the Romanian Radio & Television Symphony Orchestra.

In 1980 she obtained with Distinction the Higher Diploma in Education on Oboe, and continued to teach at the Bucharest School of Music until 1985, when she left Romania.

After coming to South Africa in 1985 she has established herself as a leading oboe teacher in Cape Town. Her students have obtained numerous distinctions at the Royal Schools of Music examinations and Eisteddfods competitions, and have been playing first oboe in the South Africa National Youth Orchestra, the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival, Miaggi, Cape Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, and the orchestras of Stellenbosch and Cape Town universities and as ad-hoc players with the Cape Town Philharmonic.