(Sir Roger Norrington)
World famous conductor to visit South Africa in January
2013.
Sir Roger Norrington, a leading light on the classical music
scene for almost 50 years, will conduct the Zurich Chamber Orchestra with
celebrated South African clarinettist Robert Pickup as soloist in Johannesburg,
Pretoria, Durban, Stellenbosch and Cape Town in January 2013.
In a
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, selected members of the South African National
Youth Orchestra will join them on their tour.
Sir Roger will conduct the opening concert of the
Johannesburg International Mozart festival on Mozart’s birthday, January 27,
giving regular concertgoers an opportunity of seeing this world renowned
conductor with his highly-acclaimed orchestra with members of the National
Youth Orchestra. Following this, they give a concert the following night in
Pretoria at the Unisa ZK Mathews Hall as part of the Unisa Music Foundation
Concert Series.
From there Sir Roger
and the orchestra will celebrate the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra’s
30th anniversary with a concert on January 29 at the City Hall, Durban.
Sir Roger then flies to the Mother City to conduct a concert
at the Endler Hall, Stellenbosch, as part of the Endler Concert Series on January
31 with his final appearance being at the New Apostolic Church in Athlone in
Cape Town on February 1. Booking is at Computicket.
The programme for each concert will comprise Mozart’s Divertimento
D Major K.136 and his Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, A Major K.622 with Robert
Pickup, Clarinet. The other two works are Labyrinth
(2005) by Fabian Müller (1964 -) and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No 5 in C
minor Op.67.
For nearly 50 years, Roger Norrington has been at the
forefront of the movement for historically informed orchestral playing and is
arguably one of the world’s greatest conductors. Knighted in 1997, he sang and
played the violin from a young age, and began to conduct at Cambridge. He
studied at the Royal College of Music under Sir Adrian Boult and at the same
time founded the first of several groups for the performance of early music,
the Heinrich Schütz Choir. This was followed ten years later by the London
Classical Players, which achieved worldwide fame with their dramatic recordings
of the nine Beethoven Symphonies. Works by Haydn, Mozart, Berlioz, Brahms,
Bruckner, and many others followed, and established Norrington as a key
exponent of historical style.
The Zurich Chamber Orchestra (ZKO) was established in immediately
after the Second World War and is one of the leading ensembles of its kind.
Regular invitations to international festivals, performances in the major
musical centres of Europe, extended concert tours through various European
countries as well as the United States and China bear witness to the Zurich
Chamber Orchestra’s worldwide reputation. Numerous critically acclaimed CDs
document the ensemble’s artistic work.
More than 50 members of the South African National Youth
Orchestra (NYO) from all over the country will be performing under the baton of
Sir Roger with the ZKO.
The National Youth Orchestra, established in 1964, is the
training ground for South Africa’s top classical musicians and is South Africa's national
team of youth orchestras. The aim of the tour is to combine South Africa’s top
young talent with this internationally-renowned chamber orchestra where
aspiring young musicians can rub shoulders with professionals and learn from
the best. Generally it is impossible for great international orchestras to tour
to South Africa, mainly due to financial considerations. Combining the chamber
orchestra with South African top young talent gives local audiences the chance
to hear excellent international musicians with some of the country’s finest
young talent and creates an exciting environment for musicians and audiences
alike. Hundreds of young musicians from South Africa have been auditioned by
expert instrument-specific panels to select the orchestra for the project.
For further information on the National Youth Orchestra
visit www.sanyo.org.za
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