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29 March 2022
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Story Teli Mothabeng
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Photo Supplied
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Philmon Bitso, Student Recruitment Officer, with the top-10 cohort of the class of 2021 Free State Star of Stars.
The Department of Student Recruitment Services at the University of the Free State (UFS) hosted its annual Free State Star of Stars competition at the Amanzi Private Game Reserve during the first week of March. The event saw some of the brightest young minds in the Free State inducted as UFS first-year students into this year’s top-10 cohort for the competition. This marks the first Star of Stars event since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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This new cohort consists of a dynamic group of academically gifted students from Quintile 1-3 schools in the Free State who are currently enrolled for different UFS academic programmes, ranging from Medicine, Law, Education, and various Bachelor of Science courses. Many of these students had to overcome insurmountable challenges to perform as well as they did in their Grade 12 academic year and to become part of the top-10 cohort for the class of 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Student Recruitment Services was forced to take a different approach to celebrate these deserving students; consequently, a weekend-long induction camp was the substitute for the annual gala dinner.
Apply for the 2022 Free State Star of Stars competition
The UFS realised the need to establish a platform that recognises and celebrates the diverse and, in most instances, difficult circumstances that disadvantaged schools (Quintile 1-3) are facing. Consequently, the Star of Stars competition was developed and established in 2016. This competition provides disadvantaged Grade 12 learners from all districts in the Free State an opportunity to showcase their excellence, while motivating them to aspire to achieve more.
Kotaro Fukuma - awe inspiring
2008-03-10
On Thursday, 28 February 2008, the Japanese pianist, Kotaro Fukuma, gave a piano recital in the Odeion.
Kotaro provided the audience with a rendition that showed complete technical and interpretative mastery, which Elretha Britz described as a “flawless performance” in the Volksblad.
The performance began with Haydn’s Piano Sonata, Op. 9. It was followed by Schumann’s “Carnival” and three compositions by Kotaro’s fellow countryman, Toru Takemitsu, who passed away in 1996. After a tour though an imaginative landscape of sound in Takemitsu’s compositions, he rounded off his programme with Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 3.
The audience not having had enough, were then treated to a Liszt transcription of Schumann’s Lied, Widmung, as an encore.
The concert was well supported by the people of Bloemfontein who went home more than satisfied. In fact, there were standing ovations at the end of almost every work.