SAMRO scholarship competition Final Round

SAMRO scholarship competition Final Round

Twelve young singers will put their best notes forward – but only two will receive South Africa’s biggest music award, the SAMRO Overseas Scholarship.

After 23 golden-voiced applicants made it through to the qualifying round, a dozen semi-finalists in the Western Art and Jazz/Popular categories have been selected for a shot at the grand prize: the chance to win one of two R160 000 scholarships (plus a R10 000 travel allowance) to further their music studies abroad.

This year, two alumni of this prestigious competition – Ben Schoeman and Bokani Dyer – were named Standard Bank Young Artist Award winners, joining a long list of SAMRO bursary and scholarship recipients who have gone on to make their mark on the local and international music scene.

In 2011, the scholarships competition – which rotates on a four-yearly cycle, rewarding keyboard players, instrumentalists, composers and singers – focuses on vocal prowess, and is always a popular and hotly contested event.

The semi-finalists in the two genres are as follows:

- Western Art Music: Sunnyboy Dladla, Hlengiwe Mkhwanazi, Maudé Montierre, Nozuko Teto, Christopher Vale and Filipa van Eck.
- Jazz/Popular Music: Emily Bruce, Sandile Gontsana, Bongile Mabaso, Sotashe Vuyolwethu, Nomfundo Xaluva and Zarcia Zacheus.

Seven of the candidates hail from the Western Cape, with four from Gauteng and one from KwaZulu-Natal.

The adjudicators for the qualifying, intermediate and final rounds include respected music academics and industry luminaries such as Prof Chatradari Devroop and Prof Virginia Davids (both genres), as well as Eugenie Chopin, Dr Conroy Cupido, Lize Coetzer, Hanna van Niekerk and Thami Zungu (Western Art Music); and Gloria Bosman, Dr Mageshen Naidoo, Natalie Rungan, Amanda Tiffin and Melanie Scholtz (Jazz/Popular Music). Leon van Wyk is the non-voting chairman of the panel.

The 12 candidates will compete in the intermediate round on 1 September 2011, where the top two performers in each category will be selected to compete in the final round. This takes place during the gala evening at the Linder Auditorium in Johannesburg on Saturday, 3 September 2011, which promises to be an immensely entertaining evening of high-calibre singing.

Date:
3 September 2011
Time:
20:00
City/Town:
Johannesburg
Venue:
Linder Auditorium
Bookings:
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Email Address:
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