Roxane Steffen
Double Bass player and more
Roxane Steffen started her musical education at the age of 6 with violin at the Music School of Delft, The Netherlands. At the age of 8 she started cello lessons and changed to double bass when she was 16.
In that same year she started studying at the Rotterdam Conservatory with Hans Krul, the Principal Double Bass of The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra at that time. After finishing her studies for the Teaching Diploma at The Rotterdam Conservatory in 1997 she continued and finished her studies for Performance Diploma at The Royal Conservatory in The Hague with Knut Guettler and Jean Paul Everts.
Directly after her graduation she got her first contract for Tutti Double Bass with The Netherlands Ballet Orchestra in Amsterdam and filled the position of Sub-Principal with Holland Symfonia from 2002-2006.
In 2004 Roxane took a sabbatical to come to Cape Town for one year to fill the position of Sub-Principal Double Bass in The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO). In January 2006 she resigned her job in The Netherlands to return to Cape Town to fill the position of Principal Double Bass with the CPO and has not left Cape Town since.
To play more chamber music and solo repertoire and spend more time teaching and coaching young musicians in Cape Town Roxane resigned from her full time position with the CPO in April 2014.
She played regular solo recitals at the Stellenbosch Conserve, where she is a lecturer since 2009, and played the Dittersdorf Double Bass concerto with Musicanti under the baton of Erika Naumann in 2015.
In April 2017 Roxane returned to her position of Principal Double Bass with The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and has no plans of leaving this post anytime soon having a great section.
She is currently lecturing at the South African College of Music (University of Cape Town), the University of Stellenbosch and is a guest lecturer at the Xiquitsi Project in Maputo, Mozambique. Roxane works closely with The Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and The South African National Youth Orchestra, coaching their bass sections.
In 2018 Roxane joined Mariechen Meyer to form Double Bass Affair, a virtuoso double bass duo, which had its very successful premiere at the Endler Hall series in September the same year.
With Gabriele Von Dürckheim, flute, and Petrus Coetzee, viola, she formed the trio Indida which premiered early 2021.
Next to these and other chamber music projects Roxane plays regular concerts promoting the solo double bass. In October 2021 she played Allan Stephenson’s Burlesque for Double Bass and small orchestra with the CPO at their symphony season, one of the first concerts with a live audience again after COVID restrictions.
Roxane is also a qualified Personal Trainer and Yoga instructor and uses both disciplines in her lessons.
During 2020, the year of lock down, Roxane has developed a passion for video editing which resulted in making various videos for the CPO and starting the YouTube channel Cape Town MotoLife where Roxane combines her love for riding motorbikes with creating videos.
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Roxane Steffen 