Youth orchestras returns to NTN

The National Theatre of Namibia (NTN) will play host to spectacular classical music for the National Youth Orchestra Festival Gala Concert set for 23 and 24 June.

The event, which aims to spark musical talent and cross-cultural dialogue, has also invited a faculty of excellent and prominent coaches from Europe, South Africa, and Namibia to mentor the young Namibian musicians.

The festival brings together young musicians from all around Namibia during the first week of the national school holidays and is hosted by the Youth Orchestras of Namibia (Yona) in collaboration with the NTN.

The ‘Faculty Concert’ on Friday marked the beginning of the festival, where the audience and participants were moved by the faculty members’ excellent performances of chamber music by Beethoven and Schubert.

During the ‘Gala Concert’ this Friday and Saturday, conductor Dorothee Mariani from Switzerland, who took the lead at the Strings Festival in 2022, will again conduct the orchestras, according to the organisers.

Danré Strydom, clarinettist and head of woodwinds at the Odeion School of Music in Bloemfontein, South Africa, will lead the woodwinds.

Organisers say last year’s first ‘Strings Festival’ was a resounding success, which sparked the return of the event for this year, featuring not only string players, but also woodwinds, percussion, and some brass players.

“With this festival, we aim to improve the standard of orchestral musicianship in Namibia and to work towards the formation of a National Youth Orchestra of which Namibia can be proud. We also want to create an opportunity for young musicians from different towns, backgrounds and language groups to get to know each other and make friends. This is in line with Yona’s vision of social change through music,” says Yona director Gretel Coetzee.

She says during the event, there will be a junior and senior strings orchestra, a wind band and an advanced symphony orchestra, playing music by Beethoven, Charpentier and others, and also a moving item with a choir by Namibian composer Osmond !Owoseb.

The event starts at 19h00.