In its 46th year the South African National Youth Orchestra Foundation boasts a whole series of Nationals courses and programmes for young orchestral musicians between the ages of 13 and 25.
Recorded auditions for all Nationals events will be held in April in main centres across the country by the traveling audition team. Young musicians wishing to apply will need to prepare a study and a piece of their choice, of minimum grade 6 music standard (Unisa, ABRSM or Trinity College), not exceeding five minutes in total. For more comprehensive audition …

The Britten-Pears Orchestra (BPO) meets four times per year and gives young artists (approx. 18-29 years) the opportunity to attend a diverse and inspiring range of courses focused on professional development. Set in Aldeburgh Music’s breath-taking surroundings on the East coast of England, it combines fantastic resources and outstanding tutors from leading international orchestras. It has also helped many artists to bridge the gap between conservatoire and professional life and launched numerous successful careers.
SA NYO members wishing to be considered for the BPO are welcome to do their SA NYO …

The Sasol National Youth Orchestra Course 2010 will take place in Durban. It will be the third SA National Youth Orchestra Foundation programme for 2010, and we will be celebrating our 46th year. It will be an intensive programme filled with challenges and fun for the National Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Concert Orchestra. Open to all musicians aged between 13-25.
Our Strings programme will run in Grahamstown at the National Arts Festival from 21 June – 2 July, in partnership with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra. Fredrik Burstedt joins us …

A scintillating programme of South African works by Mokale Koapeng, Robert Fokkens and Peter Klatzow, as well as the Russian masterpiece, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, will showcase the talent of the top youth orchestra in the country as they share their love for South African music with the audience.

People speak (from time to time) of “transformative experiences”, moments of “rare clarity” — sometimes even invoking cosmic influence, with talk of “planetary alignment” and such like.  Probably the most over-worked — and thus ‘popular’ — phrase in talk of this kind is “life-changing” — one we are more than well acquainted with and have perhaps all, at one time or another, taken recourse in when searching for adjectives to assist in the description of particularly significant events or moments in that silken (or not-so-silken) thread of which our ‘time …