Hendrik Hofmeyr

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Hendrik Hofmeyr is among the younger generation of South African composers. He was born in Cape Town in 1957. While furthering his studies in Italy during 10 years of self-imposed exile as a conscientious objector, he won the South African Opera Competition with The Fall of the House of Usher. He also received the annual Nederburg Prize for Opera for this work subsequent to its performance at the State Theatre in Pretoria in 1988. In the same year, he obtained first prize in an international competition in Italy with music for a short film by Wim Wenders. He returned to South Africa in 1992, and in 1997 won two major international composition competitions, the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition of Belgium (with 'Raptus' for violin and orchestra) and the first edition of the Dimitris Mitropoulos Competition in Athens(with 'Byzantium' for high voice and orchestra). His 'Incantesimo' for solo flute was selected to represent South Africa at the ISCM World Music Days in Croatia in 2005. He is currently associate professor in Music at the University of Cape Town.

Hofmeyr has completed more than 40 commissioned works for, amongst others, the British duo Nettle&Markham, the Hogarth Quartet, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the South African Music Rights Organisation, the Foundation for the Creative Arts and the Cape Performing Arts Board. His oeuvre includes 4 operas, 2 ballets, 6 concertos and other orchestral works, 2 string quartets and other chamber and instrumental works, and many choral and solo vocal works.