The Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival begins on Friday and according to Festival Director, Peter Martens, it’s all systems go! “Some of our illustrious faculty members have landed in South Africa a few days ago already, whilst others are en-route as we speak.”

The SICMF faculty is made up of world-class musicians drawn from the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in NY City, the Mozarteum Orchestra in Salzburg, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, and various top music schools such as the Royal College of Music in London, The Moscow Conservatoire and the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Mons in Belgium to name just a few.

The opening concert on Friday 6 July features three very different composers, all of whom were alive last century.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934), perhaps the quintessential British Romantic composer is not generally thought of as a 20th century composer. Those who enjoy his early string serenade will love the more mature, but lesser known “Introduction and Allegro” for string quartet and string orchestra, played by Madeline Adkins and Suzanne Martens (violins), Anna Maria Wünsch (viola) and Peter Martens (cello), backed by a string orchestra made up of SICMF faculty and students.

Paul Coletti’s (b.1959) “Moonlight Journey” for two violas is a most beautiful work capitalizing on the warm sublime tone of the viola. Listeners worldwide will not find two more adept players than Juan-Miguel Hernandez and Gareth Lubbe who are scheduled to perform the work this Friday.

For the final piece on the programme, Glière’s “String Octet Op 5”, the two abovementioned violists with be joined by Nicolas Dautricourt, Alissa Margulis, Madeline Adkins and Farida Bacharova (violins), and Alexander Buzlov and Peter Martens (celli). Reinhold Moritzevich Glière (1875-1956, born Reinhold Ernest Glier) was a Kiev-born composer of German and Polish ancestry who gained recognition for his inclusion of folk in his Russian Romantic style.

Tickets for the evening faculty concerts (6 to 15 July) have more often than not sold out in years past. Buy tickets early from Computicket to avoid disappointment.