As I am writing this I am enjoying the talent of the students of the South African College of Music, University of Cape Town, at their final dress rehearsal for tomorrow’s Concerto Festival concert at Baxter Theatre. And among the soloists is one of my students, Kyle Smith.
This last week has been a challenging week for me concerning students and teaching and making hard decisions. I always have a lot of patience and understanding for situations, but sometimes there is only one last option: the tough love lesson. I don’t particularly like it, but it proves to be very effective unfortunately. In having to activate the tough lesson method for one student I appreciate the students who are dedicated and eager to learn even more though.
I’ve had my share of frustrating teaching over the years, but the gems amongst them make teaching so precious and rewarding and I will never stop sharing the knowledge I gained over the years. I just love engaging with students and helping them strive. 🤓
With the orchestra we’ve been playing concerts for the communities in Cape Town last week. First a lunch hour concert in the Marble Foyer in Artscape, followed by a Sunday afternoon concert in the Athlone Community Centre and this coming Sunday we’ll travel to Langa. We play a lovely easy listening program which is maybe not to most exciting for us musicians, but the audiences enjoy it so much.🙂 And because we’re not in the concert hall, where audiences are normally further away, we can engage with our audience and get smiles and feedback and cheers all around! Direct feedback from a little 4/5 year old boy during the concert…: “ loud sigh” 🥱 🤣 You got to love a child’s innocence and honesty!
The bass is also always a popular instrument as many pics get taken with or without me after the concerts (I really should start charging 😉) but I love it!
An absolute highlight last week was the collaboration with the NAC Cape Town Young People’s Choir! They sang so beautiful I had tears after their a capella piece. We’ve worked a lot with the main choir and never just the youth choir and they were mesmerizing.
On Friday we travelled to Stellenbosch to feature at the Woordfees festival doing a marathon concert twice! 60+ min of ‘firework’ ouvertures 🤪 x 2!! But with my lovely colleagues at my side we made it through!
What is clear in this last week is that the youth in Cape Town is striving and there is so much talent out here! Support them as much as you can!
To be continued…. 🙂
Roxane Steffen 