Cameron Williams (clarinet) and Joshua Frank (guitar)

Cameron Williams and Joshua Frank are Rising Stars among today’s South African young talent. Multi-award winner clarinettist Williams joins guitarist Frank in a duo of some of the most versatile and emotional instruments for which music has been set. The duo’s selected Spanish-flavoured programme delivers an irresistible magnetism for the works of Spain’s giant Manuel de Falla and Argentine tango grand‐maestro Astor Piazzolla. De Falla’s Seven Popular Spanish Songs and Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango are sure to keep your ears peeled. A rarity on programmes and a special feature is South African composer Hugo Veldsman’s world premiere work, specially written for this duo.

The concert will be broadcast on Sunday 6 September at 4pm and will be available online until Sunday 13 September.

Programme:

Astor Piazzolla (1921 – 1992)  (Selection from) Histoire du Tango

Bordel (1900)

Café (1930)

Nightclub (1960)

Hugo Veldsman (b. 1996)  Duo for clarinet and guitar

Manuel de Falla (1876 – 1946) (Selection from) Seven Popular Spanish Songs / Siete canciones populares españolas

i. El paño moruno

iii. Asturiana

vi. Canción

v. Nana

vii. Polo

Artist biographies:

Cameron Williams is a clarinettist and saxophonist originally from Pretoria, South Africa. He has won first prizes in, amongst others, the National Youth Music (2016), UNISA Scholarship (2017), and ATKV Muziq (2018) competitions and was the first runner-up in the 2019 Fine Music Radio Bursary and Mabel Quick International Scholarship competitions. As a saxophone and clarinet soloist, he has played with numerous orchestras including the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra and the Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Orchestra; the University of Stellenbosch Symphony, Kwa-Zulu Natal Philharmonic and the South African National Youth Orchestra in venues all around South Africa. He was the co-principal clarinettist with the South African National Youth Orchestra in 2017.
He has drawn inspiration from masterclasses with Arno Piters, Rob Buckland, Robert Pickup, Laszlo Kuti, François Benda and Ferdinand Steiner. Cameron completed his Bachelor of Music degree cum laude at Stellenbosch University in 2019 where he majored in clarinet performance with Daniel Prozesky as his teacher. While a student there, he served as the principal clarinettist of the University Symphony Orchestra and Wind Band and continued his saxophone study with Dr Arisa Voges at the Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre. Cameron also has a passion for mathematics, taking extra modules from the Mathematics Department during his BMus. Currently, Cameron is a student in the BMus Honours programme at Stellenbosch University, where he also tutors first year Mathematics students.

Joshua Frank completed a master’s degree in musicology through the Stellenbosch University Music Department in 2019, and took up a part-time lecturing post at the same institution the following year. His principal research interest is the empirical study of musical emotions, with occasional forays into the evolutionary origins of music and aspects of Baroque performance practice. Joshua’s undergraduate studies were focused on performance, and he maintains an active profile playing the guitar, recorder, and oboe. He performs in various settings, with emphasis on orchestral playing and Baroque chamber music. Outside of the context of strict Western Art Music, he explores the possibilities of the folk-classical idiom as a member of the ensemble Here Be Dragons.