Cape Philharmonic Orchestra
| Cape Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founded | 1914 |
| Location | Cape Town, Western Cape SA |
| Website | www.cpo.org.za |
The Cape Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) is an orchestra based in Cape Town, Western Cape.
History
For 100 years, the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra has been the foremost orchestra in Africa. Its first international tour to the United Kingdom took place in the inaugural year, followed by others to the UK, Taiwan to celebrate its 75th anniversary, the International Festival of Music in the Canary Islands in 2000, and America in 2011, when it again received standing ovations up and down the east coast.
The CPO is versatile, performing not only symphony concerts at the highest level with internationally acclaimed conductors like Richard Bonynge and soloists such as Sarah Chang and Joshua Bell, but a host of others as well. Apart from symphony concerts, the CPO plays pops, rock and family concerts, and performs for the world-acclaimed Cape Town Opera. A tour with Cape Town Opera in the United Kingdom is planned for July 2014. This all adds up to 140 performances per year.
The orchestra's heritage is sound. From the early days when conductors of world stature chose to make the CPO their home, the orchestra has flourished artistically. Internationally fêted musicians such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Jascha Heifetz, Noel Coward and Nigel Kennedy have played with the CPO and those like Midori and Shlomo Mintz and Metropolitan sopranos Elsa van den Heever and Pretty Yende continue to come; in the early days British conductors such as Sir Thomas Beecham and Sir Charles Mackerras visited, as did Carlo Zecchi. Its system of permanent conductors changed in the 1960s when a series of guest conductors came to bring fresh ideas, while a principal or principal guest conductor took responsibility for artistic stability. The orchestra is acknowledged for the standard of its playing, and for the enthusiasm and energy with which these musicians perform no matter the genre. While classical symphonic music is their chosen repertoire, they play crossover and African musician with equal facility and passion.
Financially supported by the local authority from the start, the CPO was cut loose in 1987 and since then has supported itself through ticket sales and corporate sales, with the local lottery as a some-time benefactor. A financially sustainable model is geared to job creation and skills transfer.
The orchestra also contributes handsomely in making Cape Town part of a global culture. Its name is on many CDs and DVDs for the international market on labels. Repertoire includes Mahler and Wagner songs for RCA Red Seal, the Schnittke oratorio Nagasaki and two symphonies (no 0 and 9) on the BIS label, a double CD of orchestral masterpieces on the Dux label, the Barber and Korngold violin concerti with Alexander Gilman, which won a Diapason d'Or, which were chosen for the Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic in-flight entertainment, and most recently four Spohr Clarinet concerti with its own principal clarinet, Maria du Toit, on the Brilliant Classics label. The last eight years have seen a popular summer music festival which has brought in outstanding artists, including in 2014 the Russian "Paganini of the Trumpet", Sergei Nakariakov.
CPO youth training programmes
The orchestra runs an outreach and community programme that includes four youth orchestras and grassroots training projects in various townships which are home to disadvantaged children. This programme, Masidlale, (from the Xhosa word "let us play") produces a widening community reach to parents and family members who support it the children in public and private concerts.
Young musicians are mentored by established musicians, and these young musicians continue the programme by teaching even younger ones to play string instruments. This is done with a view to making the CPO truly representative at the highest level, and with quality as a criterion. Its success through this coaching and mentoring programme is evidenced by the fact that some of the youth orchestra musicians have passed auditions to play as substitute musicians with the CPO.
The CPO also hosts the Len van Zyl Conducting Competition.
Principal Guest Conductor
Appointed principal guest conductor in 2012, German-based Bulgarian-born Martin Panteleev has worked with over 30 different orchestras from the English Chamber Orchestra and Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra to the Berliner Symphoniker and the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared in concert halls such as Amsterdam's Royal Concertgebouw and the Berliner Philharmonie; festivals include the Rheingau Musikfestival, MDR Musiksommer and Schleswig-Holsten.
Born into a family of musicians, Martin Panteleev took his first violin lessons at the age of four. He studied at the Lyubomir Pipkov National School of Music in his home town of Sofia, then at the Bulgarian State Academy of Music, and at the age of nine years he played his first concerts in Italy, Greece, Brazil and Russia.
As associate conductor of the Philharmonia of the Nations Orchestra founded by Leonard Bernstein and Justus Frantz, he performed more than 1,000 concerts from 1999 in Europe, Asia and the USA. Since 2011, he has been chief conductor of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra. Martin Panteleev is also a prolific composer, having written three Symphonies for big symphony orchestra, a cantata for choir, orchestra and soloists Planet Steps, a percussion concerto and several more. His compositions have been performed in Germany, China, South Africa, Bulgaria and Macedonia. He has holds a Distinguished Award from the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture, one from the Brahms chamber music competition, a Bela Bartok Prize, a composition prize at the Earth and People International Competition in Sofia 1995.
External links
See also
| |||||||
