Soprano Erica Eloff and pianist Mark Nixon, released their first offering as a duo, a CD entitled SONGS in August 2010. The CD was launched during a critically acclaimed 14-concert South African tour by the London Song Circle ensemble, of which they are members.

Originally only obtainable at these concerts, this recording is now available to purchase from Upbeat Music in Cape Town, www.salonmusic.co.za, or by calling either +27 (0)21 531 4123 or +27 (0)12 362 4600. It is also possible to listen to sample tracks at http://www.ericaeloff.com/discography. 

Erica Eloff is a graduate of the North-West University, where she studied with the acclaimed baritone Werner Nel. She currently studies with Sheila Barnes in the UK and has taken part in master classes with amongst others Susan Bullock, Catherine Wyn Rogers, Elly Ameling and Helmut Deutsch.

She has won first prizes at the 2008 London Handel Competition and the 2003 UFAM Concours Internationaux de Chant – degré Honneur. In 2006 she also received special prizes at the Fifth UNISA International Singing Competition as well as at the Great Elm Vocal Awards, and is a recipient of the UNISA PJ Lemmer Scholarship for Performers.

Selected for representation as a Young Concert Artist by Making Music in 2008, Erica has sung in numerous recitals, concerts and operas in South Africa, the UK and Europe. She has also appeared on radio and television in South Africa, and on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM in the UK.

Mark Nixon was educated at the Drakensberg Boys’ Choir School and Diocesan College. He is a graduate of the University of Cape Town, the University of South Africa, the Amsterdam Conservatory, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Royal College of Music in London. His teachers have included Laura Searle, Lamar Crowson, Håkon Austbø and Graham Johnson. He is Head of Keyboard at King’s College School, Wimbledon in London.

In 1998 he won first prize in the Nederburg-UNISA National Piano Competition and in 1997 the SAMRO Scholarship for Pianists and the UNISA PJ Lemmer Scholarship for Performers. In 2000 he was selected as a Young Concert Artist of the National Federation of Music Societies in the UK (Making Music).

In 1999 he won the Guildhall School’s Schubert and Ireland Prizes as well as the accompanist’s prizes in the English Singers and Speakers Union Song Competition and 2006 Great Elm Vocal Awards held at Wigmore Hall. He often collaborates with singers in art song repertoire, is part of the King’s Piano Trio, and is a founding member of the London Song Circle.

SONGS has been acclaimed in various media including the following three big national newspapers. Beeld described it as a ‘fantastic contribution to vocal chamber music’. Die Burger raved about Eloff’s ’ability to tell stories through her singing’, and Rapport described the performance as ‘wonderous’. They went on to say that ‘the love poems, nature scenes, dramatic ballades and humorous texts are all ideally performed’ and that ‘Nixon was an imaginative co-explorer of these songs’.

Erica Eloff describes the recording as follows:

‘On this CD we present a small selection of some of the music we really love and have performed together over the last few years. It has always been important for me to sing in Afrikaans, my mother tongue. I chose Pieter de Villiers’s Sewe Boerneef-liedjies, since it is one of my favourite cycles in Afrikaans – I started singing some of these songs at the very tender age of three! James Wilding’s setting of Breyten Breytenbach’s poem slaap klein beminde was written especially for me, and because it is a really beautiful new work I have long wanted to present it to a bigger audience. More familiar and equally loved by us are the songs by Grieg, Rachmaninov and Wolf, which have been enthusiastically received in our concert performances in the UK’.

The CD was recorded in London in 2010 and the booklet includes full texts and translations, as well as programme notes. The repertoire is as follows:

Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)
Six Songs, Op. 48
Gruß
Dereinst, Gedanke mein
Lauf der Welt
Die verschwiegene Nachtigall
Zur Rosenzeit
Ein Traum

Hugo Wolf (1860–1903)
Four Mignon Songs from Gedichte von J.W. von Goethe
Mignon I (Heiss mich nicht reden)
Mignon II (Nur wer der Sehnsucht kennt)
Mignon III (So lasst mich scheinen)
Mignon (Kennst du das Land?) 

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943)
Siren’ (Lilacs), Op. 21 No. 5
Otryvok iz A. Myusse (Fragment from A. Musset), Op. 21 No. 6
Zdes’ khorosho… (How lovely it is here…), Op. 21 No. 7
Margaritki (Daisies), Op. 38 No. 3
Son (Sleep), Op. 38 No. 5
A-u! (“A-oo!”), Op. 38 No. 6

James Wilding (born 1973)
Slaap klein beminde
(with the King’s Piano Trio : Helena Smart violin, Leandro Silvera cello and Mark Nixon piano)

Pieter de Villiers (born 1924)
Sewe Boerneef-liedjies
Blaas op die pampoenstingel
Klein Piedeplooi
Die Berggans het ’n veer laat val
Waarom is die duiwel vir die slypsteen bang?
Aandblom is ’n witblom
My koekiesveerhen jou verkereveer –
Doer bo teen die rant