Faculty ’09

• Sharon de Kock, violin
• Jeanne-Louise Moolman, viola
• Leon Bosch, double bass
• Marian Lewin, cello
• Ricardo Colima, violin
• Marc Uys, violin
• Jacqueline Kerrod, harp
• Gerben Grooten, percussion
• Samson Diamond, violin
• Penelope Ives, bassoon

Sharon De Kock, who studied under Chee-yun Kim and Piotr Milewski among other Juilliard alumni, is a Master of Music graduate of the University of Cincinnati where she received many awards and prizes. From 2004 to 2006 she was a violin lecturer at two universities and a music conservatoire in Mexico, as well as lecturer and a first violinist of the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica. More recently she was attached to the Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre in Cape Town. As a concerto soloist she has performed with orchestras in Peru and Costa Rica, as well as with the Kentucky, Dayton and Richmond Orchestras in the United States. Sharon also participated in the Aspen and Grandin Festivals in America, the Lucca Music Festival in Italy and others in Japan, Scotland and Portugal. Sharon is a National Youth Orchestra alumnus.

Principal violist of the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa and, ad hoc, principal viola player of the Johannesburg Philharmonic and the Johannesburg Festival Orchestras, Jeanne-Louise Moolman has been a member of the Rosamunde String Quartet since it was founded in 1992. She has performed concertos by Telemann, Bloch, Johann Christian Bach and Mozart with the South African orchestras, and was an acclaimed soloist in Harold in Italy by Berlioz with the Johannesburg Philharmonic. Jeanne-Louise, a B.Mus. honours cum laude graduate of the University of Pretoria, studied under Alan Solomon.

Leon Bosch has an honoured place among the select group of virtuoso double bass players worldwide. Concerto engagements in many parts of the world with the likes of conductors Pinchas Zukerman, Nicolas Kraemer, Nicolae Moldoveanu and Guido Johannes Rumstadt have been matched by collaborations with a long line of leading chamber music groups – among them the Lindsay, Belcea and Brodsky string quartets, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, the Moscow Virtuosi and the Zukerman Chamber Players. Partnerships with solo performers have embraced such pianists as Peter Donohoe, Vladimir Ovchinikov, Mikhail Rudy and Maria João Pires.

Leon Bosch has a growing discography of concerto and recital recordings. This will shortly include two albums devoted to the music of the great Giovanni Bottesini and two featuring music by British composers. Then will follow everything from a disc of Russian music and another of compositions by Domenico Dragonetti, to the complete works for solo double bass by Dittersdorf, Menotti’s concerto and recordings of a string of neglected concertos for the instrument.

Marian Lewin is regarded as the doyenne of Cellists in South Africa. She began playing the cello at the age of 5 studying with her aunt Betty Pack. Marian won numerous awards in eisteddfods and played regularly on the radio program “Young South Africa”, and appeared three times with the J.S.O Youth Concerto Festival. She obtained her University of South Africa Performers Licentiate in 1963 and was awarded an overseas scholarship. In 1964 she joined the SABC Orchestra and remained there until 1967, during which time she was appointed Acting Principal Cellist. During the International Cello Week in Holland held in 1967 she was adjudicated as best cellist and appeared on Eurovision. In 1971 she was appointed principal cellist in the P.A.C.T. orchestra and held this post for 25 years. She is a veteran broadcaster, and has appeared as soloist with the SABC, Natal Philharmonic and PACT Symphony Orchestras. She was the Cellist of the Alma Musica Piano Trio for 34 years. She is now a member of the Rosamunde String Quartet, the Hemanay Flute Trio, I Grande Violoncelliste (a six cello ensemble), and the Festival Trio. She is a past lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand and taught at Pro-Arte art music and ballet school in Pretoria for 12 yrs. She was nominated for 3 ARTES Awards for 1988, 1989 and 1995. In 1998 was chosen as one of the top 10 musicians of the year by “Die BEELD”.

Marian was a member of the jury for the International String Competition held at UNISA in 1992 and 2002. She is regularly used as an external examiner for South African Universities as well as adjudicating various competitions and Eisteddfods. Marian has recorded the complete collection of Glierre Cello duets on CD with Human Coetzee and   recorded a Trio Hemany CD with Helen Vosloo and Malcolm Nay as well as Dances for Six, an internationally released CD of i Grande Cellisti and is currently making a CD with pianist Tertia Downie. She is in great demand as a chamber musician.
Marian plays on a cello made in South Africa by Dawne Haddad who studied and had her own atelier in Cremona.

Marian will be tutoring at this year’s course and will also sit on the audition panel.

Ricardo Colima began his musical career as a violinist at the age of seven at the National Conservatoire of Chile with Maestro Jaime de la Jara and Maestra Isis Muñoz, studied further in Argentina and Sweden as well with Carlo Franci in Italy and received master classes from the British conductor Francis Rainey.

He has played in orchestras in Chile, Argentina and South Africa and in chamber music, performing as first violin of several ensembles such as the Aria Quintet. He was also the founder of the International Chamber Strings.

Colima was principal conductor of the Pretoria Youth Philharmonic, Camerata Barocco and Chamber Orchestra of South Africa and is currently principal conductor of the Universidad de Magallanes Orchestra in Chile. He has also been a guest conductor in South Africa (University of Pretoria Symphony Orchestra, University of Witwatersrand Symphony Orchestra), Chile (Santiago Symphony Orchestra) and Germany (Platin Symphony Orchestra) and in festivals in Sweden, Chile, Argentina, Botswana and at the Grahamstown Arts Festival.

Colima was a violin tutor at the Universidad Nacional de San Juan (Argentina) and orchestra tutor at the National School of the Arts (South Africa). He is a violin and chamber music tutor at the Universidad de Magallanes Conservatoire in Chile. He had recorded three CDs, two as a violinist, one with South Afican jazz pianist Paul Hanmer; the other with Chilean pianist and composer Sergio Perez Bontes. The third is as conductor of the music of the Chilean Film “Gente Mala del Norte”. He has appeared as a violinist on a DVD with English soprano Sarah Brightman.

Colima has received awards such as the Johnny Walker Black Label Award with the Chamber Orchestra of South Africa, a medal from the National Congress of Chile and a Diploma for his Extraordinary Labour in Music and the Arts, given by the Agrupación Folklorica Los Chenitas, where he was a founder member.

From 2005 until 2007 he was regional coordinator of the National Foundation of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Chile. Ricardo will be giving a lecture on Youth Orchestras in Chile at this year’s course.

Gerben Grooten studied at the Rotterdam Conservatory in the Netherlands and graduated in classical orchestral percussion and then obtained a Masters degree in classical percussion performing arts. He also obtained a Masters in symphony orchestra and choir conducting. His other subjects were piano, cello, methodology, didactics, and psychology. “We musicians are such a different brand of people – psychology is a necessary study.”
He comes from a musical family – his father, mother and his brother and sister share his gift of making sweet and moving sounds. “For me, the urge was always there – at two I started percussion.”
From a very young age – 13 – Gerben worked as a professional player in orchestras, performing, touring and recording in Europe, and the USA. When he was 16 he started combining work and study. He performed in and later conducted various choirs, professional orchestras and contemporary ensembles as well as Broadway musical shows. When he was 25 he became a deputy director at a creative arts school where he taught classical percussion. He was also a project coordinator and orchestra and choir conductor.
And then 5 years later, he changed his classical career into a new direction: He started travelling the world as a drummer with Christian bands, he fell in love with people again. “This way and style of playing drums/music was new for me. I re-found so much passion. It was an experience of becoming who I was meant to be!” Since being called to the ministry, he has worked with various ministries and organizations around the world giving workshops and team-building and leadership seminars in the areas of music and worship.
Gerben has conducted several productions in this country, among them Annie, Fiddler on the Roof and several musical productions for TV with a South African flavour. He has also been involved in several projects of the University of Pretoria Symphony Orchestra< as a percussion player and drummer, and as assistant conductor of the SA National Youth Symphony orchestra in 2008.
He is presently the principal conductor for the Pretoria Symphony Orchestra and together with his wife Mieke he heads up the worship department, a music school, a music publishing company and a worship academy at Hatfield Christian Church in Pretoria where they have lived since 2005.

Samson Diamond is a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, UK, where he obtained both his Bachelor’s (2006) and his Master’s (2007) degrees in music with distinction, Samson Diamond got his first taste of music in Johannesburg where he studied with Rosemary Nalden. He also studied under the tutelage of Richard Ireland, Pauline Nobes and with French violinist Philippe Graffin.

Other awards he won during his studies include the Charles Hallé Award; the RNCM Eric Nicholson Bow Prize; the RNCM Major Entrance Award, Edward Heaton Scholarship; and the  RNCM Philip Newman Violin Prize.

Diamond’s reputation as a fine orchestral violinist is quickly growing and has seen him perform at prestigious venues such as the Berlin Philharmonie in Berlin, Bela Bartok National Concert Hall in Budapest, and the Musikverein in Vienna. As a freelance violinist, he has performed with some of Britain’s top orchestras such as the Hallé Orchestra, the Academy of St Martins in the Fields, BBC Philharmonic, Manchester Camerata, and the Academy of Ancient Music, gaining experience under distinguished conductors including Sir Mark Elder, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Neville Marriner, Yan Pascal Tortellier, and  Stanislav Skrowacevski

As the leader of the Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble, Samson is privileged to have performed at the 2007 BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall with the English Baroque Soloists and Montiverdi Choir conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.

He is also privileged to have performed before dignitaries such as Queen Elizabeth II, The Duke of Edinburgh, HRH The Duke of York, Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Tony Blair, German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark.

Samson Diamond is very active in community outreach from busking and workshops to community concerts all over the world. He has worked with the Haringey Young Musicians in London as violin coach and soloist, visiting schools in North London and introducing classical music to under-privileged communities, and toured Jamaica with the ensemble.