The University of Stellenbosch Symphony Orchestra (USSO) under the baton of Xandi van Dijk is proud to present a concert in celebration of South African internationally performed composer Péter Louis van Dijk’s 70th Birthday. The concert takes place on Friday 31 March at 7:30pm in the Endler Hall, Stellenbosch.

The first part of the concert is dedicated to the music of Péter Louis van Dijk. The concerts opens with his work titled About Nothing, followed by Sarabande for Strings with with viola solo played by Xandi. The orchestra is joined by choir Vox Cape Town, the city’s most innovative choral collective, for a performance of Van Dijk’s San Gloria. The work, inspired by San themes and rhythms attempts to blend the music of these ancient African people with an abridged version of the ancient Latin poem Gloria in excelsis Deo.

Born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands (1953), Peter van Dijk settled in South Africa, where he has worked extensively as an orchestral and choral conductor and a teacher. As a composer he is internationally known for his operas, ballets, and choral works with orchestra. His music has been published in Germany, the UK, and the US, and has been performed and recorded across southern Africa and in Egypt, Europe, New Zealand, and North America.

Péter Louis’s son, Xandi van Dijk, is violist of the internationally renowned Signum Quartet since 2007 and principal viola of the Munich Chamber Orchestra since 2017. He is a regular guest principal with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestre de chambre de Paris and the Estonian Festival Orchestra. As a conductor, Xandi has worked with all the major South African orchestras. He premiered P.L. van Dijk’s opera Earthdiving at Spier, conducted the William Kentridge production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte in Cape Town and Johannesburg, recorded the soundtrack to the Philip Noyce blockbuster Catch a Fire and premiered Denis Goldberg and Matthijs van Dijk’s Moments in a Life at the SICMF 2016.

The second part of the concert the University of Stellenbosch Symphony Orchestra perform the colossal orchestral masterwork, Brahms’ Symphony No.1.

Tickets for R150 (regular), R110 (pensioners 60 years +) and R50 (students and scholars) are available now through Webtickets and at the door one hour before the concert. For more information contact Fiona Grayer at concerts@sun.ac.za or 021 808 2358.

PROGRAMME

Péter Louis van Dijk About Nothing

Mozart Adagio from the Clarinet Concerto in A major

(with clarinet solo played by Heidri Faber)

Archibald Mxolisi Matyila arr. Péter Louis van Dijk Bawo thixo somandla

Péter Louis van Dijk Sarabande for Strings

(with obbligato viola solo played by Xandi van Dijk)

Péter Louis van Dijk San Gloria

Brahms Symphony No. 1