Women’s Day, a commemoration of the courage of South African in making their displeasure of the proposed pass laws known back in 1956, fell in the same week as a rare sprinkling of snow in Jozi. The JPO brought us a Scandanavian music programme.
At the helm was Michal Dworzynski, a Polish conductor with a neat, sparing style of conducting. Pianist, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, played the Grieg piano concerto. The overture was Nielsen’s Maskarade while the symphony was Sibelius’ Symphony No 5 in E Flat Major. The orchestra, the soloist and the conductor all acquitted themselves well. It is not the music I wish to focus on this week, but rather one of the musicians, an ordinary member of the orchestra. She is also an extraordinary woman, the only woman conductor of classical symphonic music in South Africa.
Antonio Pompa-Baldi played the Grieg Piano Concerto beautifully.
From one set of Scandanavian gems to another – for the musician I am featuring, Sonja Bass, is originally of Scandanavian origin.
Sonja Bass is one of the cellists. She loves being a cellist and she loves playing in an orchestra. Without being coy or falsely modest she mentions that she is simply not the stuff of which soloists are made. Raised in a musical family – her mother was the Natal based pianist Barbara Bass – Sonja started learning music very young, first the piano and recorder, then when she was ten, the cello. She first played with the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra while she was at school, playing frequently while at university and then joining them full time, first as a cadet then as a full member of the orchestra.
Sonja Bass plays her cello
Johannesburg gained a cellist when Sonja and her partner relocated. Sonja, working as a paramedic at the time, occasionally helped the National Symphony Orchestra out from time to time, when her off-duties permitted. Sonja points out that being a paramedic gave her a very realistic outlook on life and keeps her perspective of what “life and death” is really about focused at a level beyond matters related to the orchestra. She doesn’t add that it also gives her life experience which translates so well into her interpretations of music.
Sonja worked with Rosemary Nalden at Buskaid and is now the head of the JPO’s Academy – a programme designed to feed young musicians into the orchestra. Along the way she was catapulted into the role of conductor when the scheduled conductor failed to show up. One of her colleagues, Bassoonist Penny Ives, nudged Sonja into taking up her cello score to Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and to go ahead with rehearsing the orchestra. Sonja says it felt so right, so comfortable. All through her childhood she played at conducting to LPs. Now she had the opportunity to do it in real life.
Sonja Bass conducting
Sonja Bass conducted the JPO in the 2011 ballet season of The Sleeping Beauty. At the time I was impressed with how empathetic she is to the dancers and how well the orchestra responded to her. Sonja beams. This was definitely the highlight of her career to date. She loved working with the orchestra. She started the season very nervously, but built up a store of experience, confidence and competence as she went along.
Sonja sometimes takes conducting lessons about the technicalities of conducting from visiting conductors, but she also learns a great deal from playing under the batons of conductors from Europe who are in touch with what is going on in the rest of the world and who share their knowledge and expertise with the orchestra. The JPO has a good mix of experienced and young players, but it is the young players of the academy who will eventually become part of the orchestra that interest Sonja. She is working with them very intensely while she gains experience as a conductor.
Sonja chats to me about how supportive her colleagues have been throughout the process of her learning. They treat her as a conductor, not as a woman. She acknowledges that women bring a different energy the podium.
On a personal note, Sonja Bass’ desert island music is Mahler, and her secret fantasy – well, not too secret because I get to spread it to the world – is that she has fantasies of playing a trombone in a Big Band Jazz Orchestra. We chat about her musical muses, Ethel Kerkin, her first piano teacher; her mother, Barbara Bass, her strongest musical influence; and, naturally for a young female cellist, Jacqueline du Pre.
During the concert I watch Sonja Bass. She simply plays her heart out, as do the other musicians. I dismiss her and concentrate on the music. The music absorbs me. At the end of the day nothing but the music matters. And that was, thanks to every individual musician, of whom Sonja Bass is one, glorious!
Antonio Pompa-Baldi will be playing a recital for the Johannesburg Musical Society on Saturday 11 August 2012 and next week Charl du Plessis will play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. This will be followed by Avigail Bushakevitz playing Saint-Saens Violin Concerto No 3, and as a glorious finale, Joshua Bell playing Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major.
The orchestra for the third season comprises the following: Miroslav Chakaryan, Elbe Roberts, Dorota Swart, Melale Mantu, Juanita du Plessis, Nelly Shmukler, Mary Tennant, Lizelle le Roux, Ginger Neff, Elena Zlatkova, Bongane Pandeka, Pascali Mokadi, Samson Diamond, Daline Wilson, Olga Maraba, Milena Toma, Bernard Madumo, Kabelo Motlhomi, Willem van der Walt, Marla Branco, Dineo Matsepe, Mlungisi Zulu, Vladimir Ivanov, Esther Spies, Andrea Erasmus, Martie Botha, Kate Moore, Annemie du Plessis, Jean-Louise Nel, Bafana Mthembu, Susan Mouton, Peta Ann Holdcroft, Sonja Bass, Wessel Beukes, Daliwonga Tshangela, Toni Ivanova, Christi-Louise Swanepoel, Regomoditswe Thothela, Zanelle Britz, Cecilia Kriegler, Ventura Rosenthal, Merryl Monard, Melane Hofmeyr-Burger, Handri Loots, Gary Roberts, Lesley Stansell, Peter Jaspan, Andrew Moroosi, Phillip Coetzee, Morne van Heerden, Leagh Rankin, Penelope Ives, Brahm Henkins, Kgothatso Kekana, Shannon Armer, Christopher Bishop, Peter Griffiths, Jaco van Staden, Donald Bower, Michael Magner, Bernt Baumann, Alexander Urban, Berwyn Roberts, Nathan Thomas, Alexander Hitzeroth, George Fombe, Rudolf van Dyk, Matthew Downey, Joshua Kim, Gerben Grooten, Diane Coutts.
The Linder Auditorium is situated at the Education campus of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), 27 St Andrews Road, Parktown. Telephone for the venue is 011 717 3223 and telephone for the JPO is 011 789 2733. GPS co-ordinates: 26° 10′ 54.6456″ S, 28° 2′ 29.8932″ E. Website: http://www.jpo.co.za. There is plenty of parking in front of the venue, with more to the sides and behind the auditorium. Facilities for physically disabled patrons are available. The Olives and Plates Cafe is open before the concert, during interval and the bar is open after the concert.
What I do, see, hear, eat and drink. 