US Minnesota Orchestra Set To tour SA for Madiba’s Centenary Celebrations
Minnesota Orchestra five-city tour in South Africa
The United States Minnesota Orchestra and Classical Movements are set to tour five cities in South Africa in August 2018 as part of celebrating the 100th birthday of the late SA legend Nelson Mandela.
Minnesota Orchestra will be touring SA for the first time in company of the conductor by Minnesota Orchestra Music director Osmo Vänskä.
The tour aims to showcase music from South African, American and European musical traditions, and will draw together South African and American performers and a mix of music, offering musical exchanges with student groups and large-scale performances in colleges, city halls and churches.
A highlight of the tour will be a piece specially commissioned as a tribute to Madiba by Classical Movements. Composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen is writing the tribute, titled Harmonia Ubuntu, which will also feature soprano Goitsemang Oniccah Lehobye.
The piece will be performed at concerts in Minnesota in July, after which Vänskä and the Orchestra will travel to South Africa to perform in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg, as well as at the historic Regina Mundi Roman Catholic Church in Soweto.
Speaking about their reason for travelling to South Africa, Minnesota Orchestra President and CEO Kevin Smith said, “We recently became the first American orchestra to tour Cuba following a 2014 thaw in diplomatic relations. The experience was so uplifting and enlightening for us that we decided to forge similar cultural exchanges with other countries. Our music director Osmo Vänskä had performed with the South African National Youth Orchestra in Cape Town and Soweto in 2014, and the moving experience of that event persuaded us to tour South Africa next.”
Said Vänskä, “Music plays a central role in South African culture today, both choral music and a growing orchestral tradition, and we are excited to experience and be part of this movement.”
Ticket prices range from R100 to R600 and bookings for Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria concerts can be done through Computicket at www.computicket.com/music. For tickets to the Cape Town concert, please email [email protected].
For more information, visit www.minnesotaorchestra.org/satour.
