Musicians score at top competition

UCT student Olga Rademan and UCT alumnus André Petersen were crowned mistress and master of the keys after winning the 2009 Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO) Overseas Scholarships competition, held at UNISA in Pretoria recently.

Rademan, currently completing her BMus in performance at the South African College of Music, walked off with a R160 000 scholarship in the Western Art Music category for her suite of performances. These included Scarlatti's Sonata in E Major and Ravel's La Valse, as well as two pieces by South African composers Hendrik Hofmeyr and Roelof Temmingh.

Petersen, an accomplished jazz pianist who has taught and performed widely in South Africa and abroad, clinched the Jazz/Popular Music scholarship to the same value. He performed one of his own compositions, Cape Doctor, as well as Antonio Carlos Jobim's Agua de Beber, Bud Powell's Hallucinations and Paul Hanmer's Simple Song.

UCT alumnus Bokani Dyer, the son of jazz musician Steve Dyer, took the R40 000 runner-up prize in the Jazz/Popular Music category. He also nabbed the prize for best performance of a prescribed work in his category.

Monique Hellenberg, another UCT alumna and 2007 SAMRO winner, sang a medley of hits by SAMRO writers, arranged by Assoc Prof Mike Campbell.