WWW.CLASSICSA.CO.ZA

www.classicsa.co.za, South Africa’s foremost website for classical music has just celebrated its second birthday.

Since its launch two years ago, this formidable website has become the leading mouthpiece for classical music in South Africa, informing its users of breaking news on a daily basis in the classical music world, keeping them up to date with who’s who on the local music scene, as well as events and concerts.

To date, www.classicsa.co.za has published over 100 weekly Focus On features, engaging a broad selection of South Africa’s top classical musicians e.g. tenor Johan Botha, conductor Gerard Korsten and répétiteur Brenda Rein, as well as talented young South African musicians breaking into the international classical music circuit e.g. soprano Pretty Yende, baritone Njabulo Madlala, pianists Ben Schoeman and James Baillieu. This column also offers the opportunity to pay tribute to those who have made vast contributions to the South African classical music industry, e.g. Mimi Coertze, Nellie du Toit, and Emma Renzi, Marian Lewin, Thomas Rajna and Barry Smith.

In the daily News and Reviews column, the website keeps its pulse on news in the industry – current competitions, awards, achievements, auditions and important happenings.

With nearly 6,000 concerts and events listed over the past two years, music lovers from all over the world can benefit from the What’s On calendar, which offers a comprehensive diary of which concerts and events take place around South Africa on a daily basis.

The extensive directory on the site offers all classical music practitioners in South Africa the opportunity to advertise their services, which in turn allows the website’s users to engage directly with musicians, teachers, music shops, piano tuners, etc.

Newsletter subscribers of the site have the opportunity to win exciting prizes each month. This could be tickets to some of the top concerts in the country, or season tickets to symphony orchestra seasons. Additionally, Classicsa Page on Facebook provides a lively and interactive forum for friends of the website to share their views on published features, as well as photo albums capturing music lovers seen at concerts and events.

Founder Louis Fouché says that apart from providing a centralized platform for classical music and its many different components, the aim of www.classicsa.co.za is ultimately to make classical music more accessible to a much broader community, specifically younger and emerging audiences. “Contrary to general perception, the classical music industry in South Africa is extremely vibrant and of great social importance, and we want to reflect this on the site with a fresh approach. The key to the sustainability of classical music in our country therefore is to inform, communicate, and to create dialogue in order to work towards a new support base.”

For more information, visit www.classicsa.co.za or contact info@classicsa.co.za