Piano students frolicked in Stellenbosch
Reported by Sergio Tavares Jenna Bisschoff [above, second from right], Caylin Cloete [above, left], Haileigh Havenga [above, right], and myself [above, middle] (with Prof Tinus Botha, second from left) had the privilege to attend the Stellenbosch International Piano...
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Eastern and Southern Cape concert tour by violin and piano duo
Prof Piet Koornhof (violin) and Ms Jana Mathee (piano) have successfully completed a concert tour in the Eastern and Southern Cape from 12–15 April. They performed a duo-recital programme, titled Fantasia, with works by living Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, French...
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Birthday buddies
The Birthday Paradox is a well-known problem in probability theory that asks: How large does a group of random people need to be in order for two of them to share the same birthday? The problem is considered a paradox because the answer is counterintuitively and...
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Accolades for multimedia collaborations
Over the past year or so, Dr Jaco Meyer participated in two multidisciplinary art projects that were featured in galleries and at arts festivals across the country. Corpus Naturæ is a video installation in collaboration with visual artists Jaco van Schalkwyk and...
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Green Songs as music education for sustainable development in an early childhood setting
This study by Prof Mignon van Vreden, published in March in Perspectives in Education, addresses the need to integrate education for sustainable development (ESD) into music teacher education using the Green Songs Project, an undergraduate service-learning project in...
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From youth song collections and trial song collections to the songbook of the church: A historical overview of the development of church hymns
In this article, published in Vir die Musiekleier / To the Director of Music in December 2025, Dr Jaco Meyer traces the development of the Liedboek van die Kerk (Songbook of the Church) from the resolution at the General Synod of the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Church...
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Exchanging cold weather for a warm reception
Reported by Ms Rineke Viljoen As part of the ongoing collaboration between NWU and the Royal College of Music in Stockholm (KMH), we had the privilege of hosting three distinguished colleagues from KMH for an academic visit at the end of February. Prof Eva Nivbrant...
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NWU-KMH teaching exchange visit
Reported by Dr Yvonne-Marié Brand, Prof Liesl van der Merwe & Ms Rineke Viljoen (also see NWU-KMH academic exchange programme continues) Our teaching exchange at the end of November last year, hosted by the Royal College of Music in Stockholm (KMH), was a rich and...
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Regreso a Costa Rica*
Reported by Prof Tinus Botha Following my concert tour with Mr Thomas Erlank last year to Costa Rica and Colombia, I returned to the beautiful campus of the Universidad de Costa Rica in San José from 24–31 January 2026 for the 10th Encuentro de Pianistas Costa...
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Final doctoral graduate of 2025
In the death throes of last year, the DMus degree was conferred on Christelle Engelbrecht. She performed two concerts and submitted a thesis titled "The meaning of chamber music concerts for audience members: a comparative case study". In her thesis, Christelle found...
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A deeply rewarding experience
by Sammy Nku (also see NWU-KMH academic exchange programme continues and "Our first month in Stockholm" and "Autumn in Scandinavia") My visit to Sweden was more educational than recreational — as it should be! — but, although the exchange programme was designed with...
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Exploring five professional violinists’ flow experiences during solo and chamber music performances
This article by Dr Carli D'Alebout and Prof Liesl van der Merwe was published in Psychology of Music in November 2025. This interpretative phenomenological analysis looked at how five professional South African violinists experience “flow” — that special state where...
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