Magdalena de Vries

Magdalena de Vries is an artist from South Africa.

“De Vries coaxes and obtains an extraordinary range of tone and sound from her marimba in meeting the demands of the score"

Marimba One™ endorsed artist, Magdalena de Vries, is regarded as South Africa’s foremost classical marimbist.
A former student of Suzette Brits (Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre) De Vries won a large range of South African music prizes including two overseas scholarships, which enabled her to pursue postgraduate studies in percussion as the first ever foreign student at the Tokyo College of Music under Professor Atsushi Sugahara.
While in Japan, she was invited to join Percussion Museum (resident percussion ensemble in Tokyo), made her solo recital debut, received a Tokyo College of Music study grant and obtained a postgraduate diploma cum laude.

Whilst living in the UK (2000 – 2003) her musical engagements included a UK-France concert tour with Ensemble Bash; CD recordings with Errollyn Wallen and Continuum Ensemble; workshops run by Ensemble Bash, Sinfonia 21, spnm; performing with a variety of contemporary music groups including Premiere Crew, Modern Band and ESO at various venues, including Australia House (London), Purcell Room (London South Bank Centre), King’s College (Cambridge), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and Linbury Studio Theatre (Royal Opera Covent Garden).
As orchestral percussionist, Magdalena has worked with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo), attended the 2000 Festival de Musica de Canarias as member of the former Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, attended the 2014 Gabala International Music Festival (Azerbaijan) as member of the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra and currently regularly works as timpanist and percussionist with the Johannesburg Festival and Philharmonic Orchestras.
In May 2001 she won first prize in the Performing Australian Music Competition in London and was subsequently featured as guest soloist on the live radio broadcast of BBC3 In Tune.
In January 2003 she opened the series Music Oz: The Australia you’ve never heard before at St John’s Smith Square in London, and appeared on invitation of the Australian High Commissioner as guest artist at the Australia Day celebrations in London.
May 2003 saw the debut recital of EXPOSURE (marimba/saxophone duo with British saxophonist Sarah James) in London’s Purcell Room, and during June/July of the same year she returned to Tokyo on invitation of Prof. Sugahara to perform a series of solo, ensemble and orchestral concerts.
EXPOSURE continued their success by completing a South African concert tour in March/April 2004.
In 2003 she formed Duo FourIVTwo with South Africa’s foremost vibraphonist, Frank Mallows. The duo performed to great acclaim throughout South Africa, specifically focusing on South African repertoire.
Magdalena has performed a large number of world premières both in South Africa and abroad, including works by Errollyn Wallen (UK), Toshi Hosokawa (UK), Nigel Wood (UK), Peter Klatzow, Robert Fokkens, Paul Hanmer, Clare Loveday, Hendrik Hofmeyr, Andile Khumalo, Allan Stephenson, Braam du Toit and Franco Prinsloo. In 2016 she presented an entire programme of newly composed South African works...