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Tuesday, February 26, 2019

19 ITALIAN SONGS & ARIAS OF THE 18TH & 19TH CENTURY


(Sandile Mabaso)

The Highway area’s principal tenor, Sandile Mabaso, will be presenting a recital of 19 Italian Songs & Arias of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century on March 3, 2019, at the Holy Trinity Church in Hillcrest. Mabaso will be accompanied by the accomplished Highway Area based pianist, Bonita Ziegelmeyer.

The audience will hear Mabaso’s smooth lyric tenor sing beautiful songs and arias, accompanied by the piano, composed by early masters of opera and members of the Florentine Camerata. This group came together to innovate the ‘musical theatre’ of their time. Their innovations led to the development of opera. Some of their innovations are still used and heard in opera today. The songs and arias capture the joys of new love and the pain when that love ends. Some of the songs mention names of the lovers. This heightens the intensity of the emotions in the music. The audience will be transported back in time and experience the full emotions of the songs, only to realise that they have also felt these emotions.

The idea to present these songs and arias came to Mabaso after a music lesson when a student had sung one of the pieces. “It became clear that this repertoire has to be performed regularly for young singing students to understand the requirements of the piece. They must be also performed pleasure because the music is just magnificent,” he explains.

Mabaso is a tenor from KwaZulu-Natal who began his musical training at the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir School, under the direction of Christian Ashley-Botha. In 2005 he obtained his Bachelor of Music from the University of Pretoria. While a student he sang the roles of Tamino in The Magic Flute (Mozart) and Alfredo in Die Fledermaus (Strauss). He had his first professional engagement in 2006 singing the role of Inkos’ Mathole in Opera Africa’s touring production of Princess Magogo (Khumalo). He toured South Africa and The Netherlands with this production.

From 2006-2007, he was a member of the Cape Town Opera Vocal Ensemble where he toured to Germany, France and Sweden in the productions of Showboat (Kern) and Porgy and Bess (Gershwin).

In 2009 he began studying with Prof. Werner Nel and was selected to participate in The International Baroque Symposium, held at the North West University, under the leadership of Kobie van Rensburg. In 2010 he sung the role of Acis in Acis and Galatea (Handel) also under the direction of Kobie van Rensburg. In 2012 he has sung the role of Puck in The Fairy Queen (Purcell) for Umculo Cape Festival.

In 2013 he was a finalist in the Mimi Coertse Singing Competition. In 2014 he made his solo debut with the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra.

The German art-song has been his main focus along with his operatic endeavours. In 2012 he was invited to perform Dichterliebe (Schumann) at UNISA's annual An die Musik recital. He has also presented this work at the Wakkerstroom Arts Festival, Tatham Art Gallery. In 2013 he presented Brahms’ LiebesliederWalzer, opus 52 & 65 at the Odeion, Bloemfontein. In 2014, he sang On Wenlock Edge (Vaughan-Williams) in Pretoria. In 2015 He sung Die schone Mullerin in Stellenbosch.

In 2015, he toured a programme of Baroque music with harpsichordist, Andrew Cruickshank along South Africa’s garden route. In 2016, he moved to KwaZulu-Natal and opened his own teaching studio.

The recital will take place at 15h00 on March 3, 2019, at the Holy Trinity Church in Hillcrest. Tickets R75 at the door. For more information contact Sandile Mabaso on 084 598 8125 or email mabaso.sandile@gmail.com