Youth to showcase their talent at concert series

Sakhile Humbane, a fourth-year UCT student , was the 2015 winner of the National Youth Music Competition.

The fourth Young Artists’ Concert series takes place at Erin Hall in Rondebosch on Friday July 26, at 7pm.

Three of the rising stars hail from the annual National Youth Music Competition (NYMC).

The 17-year-old Beate Boshoff, the 2018 NYMC runner-up in the piano category is the youngest in the group.

Her fellow soloists are flautist Sakhile Humbane, the 2015 NYMC first prize winner and gold medallist, and pianist Seiren Wi, who in 2010 was awarded the prize for the most promising semi-finalist, and did not play in the final round at the NYMC. She was also a member of the Shadow Jury at the 2017 NYMC.

The fourth member of the ensemble is pianist Dominic Daula, who is currently a postgraduate student at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, specialising in solo piano performance. Dominic will be part of the shadow jury at this year’s NYMC.

Presented by the National Youth Music Foundation (NYMF), this concert is the fourth since the inception of the Young Artists’ Concert Series.

The programme will include piano and flute works by Phillipe Gaubert, Francis Poulenc and Frank Martin.

Matriculant Beate hails from Bethlehem in the Free State. On completion of matric, she aims to pursue a career in music.

Apart from numerous distinctions, she has performed as a soloist with the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra, Free State Symphony Orchestra and Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra.

Sakhile Humbane, an Honours BMus Performance degree student at the University of Cape Town (UCT), is originally from KwaMashu in Durban in KwaZulu-Natal.

Apart from walking away with top honours at the 2015 NYMC, he travelled to Dubai last year where he won the first prize for the Africa and Middle-East category of the Yamaha Music Gulf Scholarship competition.

Fellow honours music student Seiren Wi is currently studying the piano under Professor Francois du Toit at UCT. Seiren is an active chamber musician and is a member of the Variation 3 Trio, which won the duo and trio categories in the Stellenbosch ensemble competition in 2018.

Growing up in the Eastern Cape, Dominic Daula commenced his music studies at UCT in 2013, where he completed undergraduate and postgraduate degrees with distinction.

In 2017 he won a scholarship to further his studies in Manchester.

“The NYMC, now in its 35th year, annually attracts the cream of classical instrumentalist between the ages of 14 and 19 to vie for the cash prizes of R145 000 and the sought after gold silver and bronze medals. This year’s competition runs from 8 to 12 October at the Hugo Lambrechts Auditorium in Parow, Cape Town,” says Michael Maas, chairman of the NYMF.

The auditions for the 2019 rising stars have been concluded and the 18 successful contestants will be announced in the week following the Erin Hall concert.

“Since the inception of the concert series, the NYMF presented three concerts with huge success. We have exposed eight rising stars in the process, fulfilling our mission to identify, expose and develop local music talent,” says Maas.

Unreserved seats are R120 and R70 for students, pupils and pensioners from Computicket or at the door.