With Albie van Schalkwyk on piano, they team up to bring you a mix of gypsy and folk music.

During the 19th and early 20th century, gypsy culture and folk music of the Roma people was romanticised and became quite fashionable in Western art music. 

This programme depicts the entertaining character of “gypsy music” on the surface, but beneath that, it explores the yearning of these marginalised, nomadic people to belong somewhere.

PROGRAMME

Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897): Zigeunerlieder

Antonín Dvorák (1841 – 1904): Gypsy Songs

Tenor arias from operettas: “Die Csardasfürstin” (Kalman), “Gräfin Mariza” (Kalman), “Frasquita” (Lehar), “Zigeunerliebe” (Lehar), “Zigeunerbaron” (Strauss II)

Dr Albertus Engelbrecht was appointed in the opera houses of Nürnberg and Passau (Germany) for a total of 17 years, where he performed a diversity of leading roles such as Orfeo in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Ulisse in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Ramiro in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Duca in Verdi’s Rigoletto, and Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail. 

Guest contracts have taken him to Luzern (Switzerland) and Los Angeles (USA).  As a concert singer, he performed regularly in Berlin, Frankfurt, Mainz and Vienna. A highlight of his career was the concerts of Mendelsohn’s Walpurgisnacht in the Teatro San Carlo (Naples, Italy). Albertus has been a lecturer in singing at the OSM since 2016 and obtained his PhD at the OSM in 2023.

Albie van Schalkwyk has established himself as a performer in several fields over the past 30 years. One of the leading chamber musicians and vocal accompanists in South Africa, he has also performed as a soloist with SA orchestras, performed solo recitals, given masterclasses, worked as a music producer for the SABC, and arranged music, including Broadway musicals and operas for two pianos and orchestral pieces for three to eight pianos. 

He completed his PhD at the UFS in 2012. His interest in vocal music and the art song has led to many partnerships with singers, culminating in the formation in 1994 of The Songmakers’ Guild.  This Cape Town-based organisation has been providing a regular platform to performers in the field of art song for 25 years. 

 Albie van Schalkwyk 

He has presented workshops and classes for singers and accompanists at several SA universities and spent his 2002/2003 sabbatical working as a coach in the vocal department of the Mozarteum Music University in Salzburg (Austria).

Albie retired from his post as associate professor in piano and chamber music at the SA College of Music, University of Cape Town, at the end of 2017, to his own private studio, the Musicumbrella Piano Studio. 

Apart from continuing his performance career as collaborative pianist, he plans a wide range of activities, including individual piano teaching, masterclasses in piano, chamber music and art songs, vocal coaching and arrangements for multiple pianos.

Tickets available at Quicket.

OFM