Gérard Korsten

Ben Schoeman

Korsten conducts

Free State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gérard Korsten

Soloist :           Ben Schoeman (piano)

Date    :           Saturday 30 May 2015 at 19:30 in the Sand du Plessis theatre

Two of our country’s most successful musicians, Gérard Korsten and Ben Schoeman, will perform with the Free State Symphony Orchestra in the Sand du Plessis theatre on Saturday 30 May. This concert is made possible by a grant from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF).

Korsten held positions of Principal Conductor of the State Theatre in Pretoria and the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra before he was appointed Music Director of the Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari from 1999-2005. In Cagliari he conducted the first Italian performances of Richard Strauss’s Die ägyptische Helena, Weber’s Euryanthe, Delius’s A Village Romeo and Juliet and Schubert’s Alfonso und Estrella, as well as the productions of the core operatic repertoire including Die Zauberflöte, Don Giovanni, Lucia di Lammermoor, Carmen, Die Fledermaus, Tosca, Aïda, The Barber of Seville and Don Pasquale. In 2009 he was appointed Music Director of the London Mozart Players, the position he relinquished at the end of last season.

Gérard Korsten has appeared in the most notable opera houses and concert halls around Europe including Teatro La Scala Milan (Le nozze di Figaro), Maggio Musicale Florence (Così fan tutte), Teatro Reggio di Parma (La sonnambula), Teatro Lirico Verdi Trieste (Don Pasquale and La fille du régiment), Opéra de Lyon (Ariadne auf Naxos, Henze’s L’Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe, Siegfried, La Traviata and La Vie Parisienne), Royal Swedish Opera (Don Giovanni), Netherlands Opera (Così fan tutte), English National Opera (Aïda), Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Albert Herring) and the Lincoln Centre New York.

Ben Schoeman is regarded as one of South Africa’s foremost pianists. He has won major prizes, including the first grand prize in the 11th UNISA International Piano Competition, Pretoria (2008), first prize and gold medal in the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition, London (2009), the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Music (2011) and the Contemporary Music Prize at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, USA (2013).

He has given solo, chamber music and concerto performances throughout Europe, Canada, the USA and South Africa in such prestigious concert halls as the Wigmore, Barbican, Cadogan and Queen Elizabeth Halls in London and the Konzerthaus in Berlin. As soloist he has collaborated with a number of celebrated conductors, including Yasuo Shinozaki, En Shao, James Judd, Diego Masson, Nicholas Cleobury, Gérard Korsten, Vincent de Kort, Theodore Kuchar and Conrad van Alphen.

In 2012, along with duo-partner cellist Anzél Gerber, he was awarded the first prize in the Ibla Grand Prize Competition in Italy. As part of this prize the duo gave a recital at Carnegie Hall, New York.

ADMISSION:

R150 (adults)

R100 (pensioners)

Students can buy tickets at R50 at the venue 50 minutes before the concert commences.

Tickets for the concert in the Sand du Plessis are available from PACOFS in St. Andrews Street, Bloemfontein (free, safe parking while you do your booking.). Telephonic bookings can be done at (051) 447-7772.

Business hours:  Monday to Friday 08:30 to 17:00, Saturday 09:00 to 12:00, on performance dates and 50 minutes before a show commences in the Sand du Plessis theatre.