🎼 SICMF 2025 – Festival Symphony Orchestra Concert 1
🗓️ 11 July 2025 | 🕗 20:00 | 📍 Endler Hall, Stellenbosch University
The Festival Symphony Orchestra is made up of the student participants of the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival, performing alongside and mentored by the professional faculty. Each year, this orchestra comes together for one week only — combining young energy with seasoned experience in a unique side-by-side setting.
This year’s orchestra will be conducted by Antony Hermus, making his debut appearance at the festival. One of the most sought-after Dutch conductors of his generation, Hermus brings clarity, intensity and insight to every performance.
The programme opens with Fountain of Youth (2019) by Julia Wolfe — a short, punchy overture that plays with drive, texture and sharp turns of character.
Next, Emanuel Ivanov, winner of the 2019 Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition, joins the orchestra for Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major. From its unexpected whip-crack opening to the gentle elegance of the slow movement, this concerto is full of contrast and colour.
The evening concludes with Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 — a deeply layered work, steeped in struggle and resolve, ending with one of the great climaxes in the symphonic repertoire.
An evening not to be missed!
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