People of Note

My guest n People of Note this week is the British guitarist Michael Watts who is in South Africa to collect a brand-new guitar which has been specially made for him by Casimi Guitars, a duo with an international reputation as two of the greatest guitar makers of their generation. Michael brought his new guitar to the studio and demonstrated it during the programme. We also took pictures of it whi...

People of Note this week features news of the UCT Summer School which opens this weekend. I’ll be talking to Medee Rall who is the Director of the Centre for Extra-mural Studies at UCT and who is also responsible for arranging the Summer School. UCT is celebrating 100 years of continuous , life long learning with the Summer School being established in 1950.

On People Of Note this week, Mike Mills stands in for Rodney Trudgeon to chat with Jonathan Crossley who is a renowned South African guitarist in the fields of both Classical music and Jazz. He's also an acclaimed musical innovator and experimenter, exploring new technology and techniques in creating music. He's now a lecturer at Liverpool University. He explains the latest trends in music.

People of Note is brought to you each week by PTP and this week my guest is ROBYN TAYLOR , the recently appointed Executive Manager of Cape Town City Ballet. Robyn has had a long and distinguished career in ballet and various other forms of dance and she is one of 3 Founding Trustees of the South African National Dance Trust. She also spent some 15 years raising funds and creating awareness for va...

On this week’s edition of People of Note, brought to you by PTP, I’ll be talking to a recent visitor to South Africa, the Canadian born, Berlin based cellist Bryan Cheng who stunned us with his performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto with the CPO under Robert Moody. Bryan has won a number of major international awards and made his sold out debut in Carnegie Hall when he was only 14. He plays the Dub...

On People of Note this week I’ll be talking to Brent Van Rensburg who is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of the Zip Zap Circus which was launched 30 years ago and which has had more than 20,000 students passing through it and which has been on numerous international tours. It was formed to bridge socio-economic gaps and to inspire and empower young people to build a new culture of peace...

On People of Note this week, brought to you by Pieter Toerien Productions, my guest will be the children’s author Lesley Beake, whose latest book is called The Time Trackers and tells the story of the child Tana who lives in the Tankwa Karoo. The book is brought alive with illustrations by Michael Pattison and expert input by archeologist Emily Hallinan. Lesley began writing when she was 6 and now...

People of Note on Fine Music Radio is brought to you by Pieter Toerien Productions and my guest this week is Virginia Davids, one of this country’s most distinguished and respected singing teachers. Virginia studied at Stellenbosch University and made her debut at CAPAB with the title role in Verdi’s Aida. After a long singing career, during which she won all the major awards, Virginia is now Asso...

Arguably the most famous family musical of all time is The Sound Of Music and in this week’s edition of People of Note, brought to you by Pieter Toerien Productions, I’ll be talking to Brittany Smith who will be singing Maria in the production which opens here at Artscape on December 14th for a month’s run during the festive season. Craig Urbani will play Captain Von Trapp. Brittany has just stunn...

In this week’s edition of People of Note, brought to you by Pieter Toerien Productions, I’ll be talking to the well-known and much love South African pianist Rocco De Villiers who will be collaborating with the guitarist James Grace in a new show called 5 Nights In November at the Theatre on The Bay from 15 November. James and Rocco couldn’t be more different in personality, style, dress, hair and...

During the recent Baroque Festival, I was lucky to be able to attend a recital of music played on harpsichords, spinets and organs in a small concert hall in Noordhoek on the property of Bill Robson who actually built all the instruments we heard. Bill is a well known maker of organs and harpsichords which he carefully and loving builds with his bare hands using tools that used to belong to his gr...

In this week’s edition of People of Note, brought to you by Pieter Toerien Productions, I’ll be talking to travel writer, author, poet and photographer JUSTIN FOX who has just had a new book published called Place. This is a gripping travelogue in which Justin sets off to explore the places of his favourite books. All the big names are there – Olive Schreiner, Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, JM Coetzee, Za...

There’s an unusual and exciting production happening in the trees and bushes at the Spier Wine Estate in November. It’s called Constellations and is directed by Brett Bailey who invites you to expect a unique cultural experience in the forested wilderness at Spier where atmospheric encounters await in the dark woods under a starlit sky. I spoke to one the performers , Megan Choritz on People of no...

Cape Town Opera and the UCT Opera School invite you to step into a world of passion, tragedy, magnificent melody and visual extravagance in their production of Verdi’s timeless masterpiece, La Traviata. The opera will be conducted by Jeremy Silver and directed by Mari Borstlap. Mari is an established theatre director, designer, actor and playwright. She is also a film maker and promises something...

On People of Note this week, Rodney Trudgeon will be talking to Zoe Beyers, who has established a reputation as one of the finest and most versatile violinists based in the UK. Zoe is also an accomplished chamber musician and is a member of the internationally famous Dante Quartet, which has just arrived in Cape for a series of concerts both in the city as well as in Stellenbosch and Johannesburg....

This week’s People of Note takes on a somewhat different format. Pieter Dirk Uys has had a lifelong love affair with the great Sophia Loren. They have remained close and dear friends over many years. Sophia Loren has just turned 89 and only a week or so ago, she fell in her bathroom, broke her hip and had to have it replaced. Pieter suggested we pay tribute to this great actress and singer by play...

This week’s People of Note focusses on orchestras in South Africa, specifically the Cape Town Philharmonic and new and somewhat controversial plans to fund orchestral music. My guest will be Louis Heynemann, who is the CEO and Artistic Director of the Cape Town Philharmonic and has been for some 23 years guiding the orchestra through various difficulties including the Covid disaster.

Two years ago a production at the Baxter Theatre was so successful during its debut run that it has been brought back to the Magnet Theatre. It’s called SNAPPED and it was written by Jennie Reznek and directed by Mark Fleishman. The play explores the relationship between fathers and daughters and it tackles loss and grief, and how to overcome these. The play intersects two stories – that of a woma...

This week Cape Town Opera’s magnificent production of Puccini’s Tosca opens at the Artscape Opera House. The production, which is directed by Magdelene Minnaar, has just moved from Johannesburg, where it enjoyed rave reviews. Rodney Trudgeon spoke to the conductor, Bjorn Bantock, about Puccini’s magnificent and opulent score and about the many challenges that face the orchestra and soloists, as we...

For many people, the opera The Tales of Hoffman is Jacques Offenbach’s masterpiece. It was written right towards the end of his life and in fact he died during the rehearsals. The opera is being presented by the UCT Opera School with an exciting cast and Jeremy Silver is conducting the Cape Philharmonic. The director of the opera is Steven Stead who has many credits to his name including opera, mu...

In what promises to be one of the most thrilling theatre highlights of the year, the stage production of Damon Galgut’s Booker Prize winning novel The Promise has been adapted for the stage and will have it’s world premier in Cape Town on 14 September. The dazzling cast line up includes Rob van Vuuren, Kate Normington, Frank Opperman and Chuma Sopotela. The production will be directed by MULTI awa...

In celebration of Women’s Month, Abrahamse and Meyer Productions are presenting the world premier of a new play called “Why Do Moths Fly Like Crazy in the Night”. The play was written by award winning actress Sue Pam-Grant who stars in it as well. It’s a one woman show inspired by the work of Louise Bourgeois, one of the most prolific and fascinating visual artists of the 20th century. Rodney Trud...

At the Mzanzi National Philharmonic concert next Saturday at which the main work will be Mahler’s Fifth Symphony conducted by Marin Alsop, the first half will feature dramatic soprano arias sung by Masabane Cecilia Rangwanashe who is based in Europe and who has been dazzling audiences with her radiant voice. She has just sung the Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss at a Proms concert in London and...

On People of Note this week, Rodney Trudgeon will be talking to Charmaine Weir-Smith who is directing a play which has won 5 Naledi Theatre awards called The Beauty Queen of Leenane. The play was written by the Tony Award Nominee Martin McDonagh and has been described as a masterpiece and a darkly comic tale about the turbulent, dysfunctional and often savage relationship between a mother and daug...

The first think I thought when I saw Darrel Bristow-Bovey’s latest book called ENDURANCE was do we need yet another book about Shackleton’s attempt to reach the South Pole. Yet, once I’d started reading it, I realised that Darrel has unearthed all sorts of new material and that he carefully intertwines the story with his own life and family – especially his father. The result is a truly gripping s...