US orchestra heads to SA

The acclaimed American Minnesota Orchestra, in partnership with Classical Movements, will this year embark on a five-city tour of South Africa for the Nelson Mandela centenary year.

Conducted by Minnesota Orchestra music director Osmo Vänskä, the tour marks the first visit to South Africa by a professional US orchestra.

A highlight of the tour will be a piece specially commissioned as a tribute to Mandela by Classical Movements. World-acclaimed composer Bongani Ndodana-Breen is writing the tribute, titled Harmonia Ubuntu, which will also feature soprano Goitsemang Oniccah Lehobye.

The piece will be performed in Minnesota in July, after which the orchestra will travel to SA to perform in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and Johannesburg, as well as Regina Mundi church in Soweto.

“We recently became the first American orchestra to tour Cuba following a 2014 thaw in diplomatic relations. The experience was so uplifting and enlightening for us that we decided to forge similar cultural exchanges with other countries,” said the orchestra’s president and CEO, Kevin Smith.

“Our music director performed with the SA National Youth Orchestra in Cape Town and Soweto in 2014, and that moving experience persuaded us to tour South Africa next.”

Said Vänskä: “Music plays a central role in South African culture today, both choral music and a growing orchestral tradition, and we are excited to experience and be part of this movement.”

In 2014, the Minnesota Orchestra won the Best Orchestral Performance Grammy Award. With multiple nominations under their belt, Vänskä and the orchestra have just received a further nomination for the 2018 Grammys taking place at the end of January. – Citizen reporter