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14 October 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Sonia Small
OSM Camerata
The OSM Camerata also performed at the Rector’s Concert on 6 September under direction of conductor Elsabe Raath.


The Odeion School of Music Camerata (OSMC) is one of the flagship music ensembles at the University of the Free State (UFS). Its reputation as one of the country’s top student chamber ensembles far equlas its impeccable music.

At the end of September the Camerata undertook a tour with concerts in Pretoria and Johannesburg. They held a concert in the new Javett Arts Centre at the University of Pretoria (UP) where they presented a lunch-hour concert which featured modern musical arrangements. At a gala concert, on 28 September 2019, which was hosted in the Musaion Concert hall at UP they collaborated with the UP Department of Music and the Gauteng Chamber Music Festival.  

The last leg of the tour ended at the University of the Witwatersrand Atrium on 29 September 2019. According Marius Coetzee, innovation manager at the OSM: “it is important to go on tour in order to recruit new outstanding students and to showcase the excellence of the Camerata and the Odeion School of Music.” 

The OSMC has also forged a professional internship with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra to solidify and advance the skills of the young orchestral musicians. 

The OSMC was also the 2017 and 2018 winner of the International Ictus Music competition.  

The OSMC was strategically founded by Marius Coetzee to serve as a feasible incubator for nurturing of fully rounded musicians who are thoroughly prepared for the demands of their trade as orchestral musicians, soloists and conductors.  

News Archive

DF Malan – the politician, the man and Lindie Koorts’ award behind it
2014-04-30

 
Lindie Koorts
Photo: Hannes Pieterse
Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction. In this case, it is not only true, but fact is stirring up more of a buzz than make-belief does.

The first biography of an apartheid Prime Minister written since 1994, won an award at the 2014 Woordfees. ‘DF Malan and the Rise of Afrikaner Nationalism’ is the title of the book causing this national whirlwind. The author: Lindie Koorts – a postdoctoral fellow at the UFS’s Centre for Africa Studies.

She admits she was among the most surprised when she won the category for Debut Writers. “This is, as far as I know, the first time this prize goes to a non-fiction writer,” Koorts said.

What started as curiosity around DF Malan, four years later culminated in an objective biography devoid of justification or exoneration. “Throughout the process of writing, I offer the facts, but I do not clamber in with moralistic judgements,” Koorts said.

In addition to Malan the politician, Koorts discovered Malan the human being as well during her research. When she stumbled on his hand-written love letters to Maria Louw, which he wrote when he was in his 60s, a totally different man emerged. “I felt like a teenager while reading those letters!” Koorts laughed.

In the chapter entitled Coalition and Fusion, this dynamic historian unearthed a fact that had the power to change the course of history. Up until this point, the belief was held that one party deceived another. However, Koorts’ research proves that the entire issue rested on a letter that did not arrive on time. A case of tardy train schedules and a mere misunderstanding.

“To be able to unravel these things makes one feel that you have succeeded in something,” she said.

Not only did she succeed in writing an award-winning biography, she surely will be making history as she goes.

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