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After South Africa’s battle with the record-breaking drought of 2015, Prof Andries Jordaan from our Disaster Management Training and Education Centre for Africa(DiMTEC) saw room for improvement in dealing with this kind of disaster.
Drought impact
Commercial farmers who are usually net exporters of food crops and communal farmers who own the bulk of the country’s livestock, were all hit hard in 2015. Most of the latter had no resources to spare as the drought progressed. The concern about the drought’s impact on the country’s food production and availability resulted in a joint goal of preventing food scarcity during future droughts.
Prof Jordaan’s visit to the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the US, several years ago prepared him to better equip communities in South Africa to deal with drought situations. “I recognised that in spite of the impact DiMTEC has been able to make on disaster preparedness, a gap remained in disaster response in South Africa.”
Sharing knowledge
In August this year Prof Jordaan again visited the NDMC. This time he requested a few key players in South Africa’s agriculture and disaster response communities to join him. With him were Janse Rabie, head of Natural Resources at AgriSA, a nonprofit organisation that functions as an interface between the government and about 28 000 South Africa farmers, and Moses Musiwale Khangale, director of Fire Services for the South African Ministry of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
The South African delegation met with and learnt from climatologists, geospatial technologists, and outreach and planning analysts.
OSM Camerata hosts concert as part of International Ictus Music Competition
2017-05-29
In 2015 the Odeion School of Music Camerata premiered the Hendrik Hofmeyr
Double Concerto for Recorder and Harpsichord with esteemed South African artists
Stefan Temmingh and Erik Dippenaar.
Photo: Supplied
The Odeion School of Music Camerata (OSMC) at the University of the Free State (UFS) will be celebrating its fifth birthday in style when it participates in the 2017 International Ictus Music Competition. The competition is an innovative new online competition for ensembles, orchestras and band/wind ensembles (middle school, high school, youth ensemble, community ensemble and college/conservatory/university) that compete through video submission.
Opportunity for fundraising
As part of the competition the OSMC will host a concert that will also serve as a fundraising opportunity. The concert takes place on 31 May 2017 in the Odeion on the Bloemfontein Campus. The OSMC was strategically founded in 2012 by Marius Coetzee as the Odeion School of Music’s flagship chamber ensemble with the main objective of creating a catalyst for excellence.
International exposure at stake
Substantial money prizes are at stake in the International Ictus Music Competition and ensembles will receive written feedback from a jury consisting of renowned maestri including Stilian Kirov, who was awarded 1st Prize in the Debut Berlin Competition on 18 May 2017. Top prize-winners will be interviewed by a representative from the competition. It will be broadcast internationally to enable them to share their hard work and passion for music with the world.
Over the past five years the OSMC has premiered 10 new works by South African composers specially commissioned for them. A highlight remains its participation in the 13th International Conservatory Festival in St Petersburg Russia, where the ensemble received a standing ovation during a gala concert in the Glazunov Concert Hall.
Date: 31 May 2017
Time: 19:30
Place: Odeion (Bloemfontein Campus)
Entry: R20