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19 March 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa
Career Services
Front row from left to right: Magdalena Matthys (intern), Lavhelesani Mpofu (intern). Back row from left to right: Carmenita Redcliffe (Chief Officer: Company Relations), Nthabiseng Khota (intern), Belinda Janeke (Head of Career Services and Student Relations).

The Career Services office opened its facilities in 2007 as a help desk on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus at the Sasol Library, due to the increasing number of students looking for employment opportunities. The team has grown over the years and now consists of two chief officers, Belinda Janeke and Carmenita Redcliffe, two research assistants, 15 volunteers and seven career ambassadors.  The portfolio of company relations is the latest addition to the team that runs a number of new initiatives and events that aim to enhance overall marketing and services offered by the department.

In January this year, Career Services hosted a corporate breakfast in Johannesburg.  Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Francis Petersen, led a delegation consisting of Vice Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Dean of Student Affairs, Pura Mgolombane, Director of Institutional Advancement, and Director of Communication and Marketing, Annamia van den Heever, and Lacea Loader respectively . The event was an initiative that sought to motivating companies, donors and funders to employ and fund top UFS graduates.

According to Belinda Janeke, keeping UFS students informed about career opportunities and equipping them with the skills and grit to make them employable, finding employment or starting their own business is the department’s ultimate goal.



News Archive

OSM Camerata first place winner in international competition
2017-09-08

Description: Camerata Tags: OSM Camerata, Ictus International Music Competition, Marius Coetzee, Odeion School of Music 

The OSM Camerata with conductors, Xavier Cloete and
Gerhard de Jager received first place in the
University/Conservatory Orchestra category.
Photo: Supplied



The OSM Camerata received first place in the 2017 Ictus International Music Competition for bands and orchestras. Marius Coetzee from the Odeion School of Music at the University of the Free State said: “The award was announced in time for the celebration of the orchestra’s fifth birthday.”

OSM a catalyst for excellence
The OSMC was strategically founded in 2012 by Coetzee as the OSM’s flagship chamber ensemble, with the main objective of creating a catalyst for excellence.

Over the past five years, the OSMC has premiered 15 new works by South African composers specially commissioned for them. Highlights remain 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, as well as the world première of the Cello Concerto for an African Cellist by South African composer, Hans Huyssen, with South African cellist, Heleen du Plessis as soloist. The CD was released in 2014 on the New Zealand Classical Music label, Ode Records in Auckland, New Zealand and was one of five CDs nominated for the Listeners' Choice Award New York in March 2014.

Competition draws participation from Washington to Bloemfontein

The inaugural year of this annual competition drew applicants from Washington State in the US all the way to Bloemfontein in the Free State. Video submissions were judged and narrowed down to a final round from which prize winners were selected.

The OSM Camerata with conductors, Xavier Cloete and Gerhard De Jager, received first place in the University/Conservatory Orchestra category. 

The competition was founded to highlight the work that music educators, conductors, students, performers and community members make in ensembles at the university, community, youth, high school and middle school levels. 

Competition director, Alex Serio says that “many people do not realise the amount of work that it takes to make these ensembles run. What is more is that most of the public does not realise the level of artistic excellence that can be achieved in these ensembles. Ictus International Music Competition was founded to highlight this level

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